Dispatches since 2005
The journal
Announcements, new editions, travel, diving, cooking and the working life of a novelist — 181 entries, all of them here in full.
July 10, 2013 · 430 words
Triumph of the Deep State
Egypt’s Deep State is back in charge of the country, which may not be such a surprise— but what’s different is the enormous degree of popular support. Demonstrations in the millions aimed at the overthrow of the democratically-elected Morsi government. How could the Old Guard resist? Not that the demonstrators pr
Read entry →July 9, 2013 · 328 words
WordPress 911!
I have spiffed up my page of ebook links, which I now recommend to you all as a model of clarity and attractiveness. I added thumbnails of the covers of all the books, just to make it all the prettier. My original problem in attempting this was that the thumbnails tended to pile up and […]
Read entry →July 6, 2013 · 341 words
Pitch Meeting
Thanks to Eric D Snider and his eerie command of the NSA archives, we now have a complete transcript of the pitch meeting for the new Lone Ranger movie. Let’s listen as the geniuses at Disney work their magic. DISNEY EXEC. #2: What’s your concept for it? A faithful recreation of the classic character just as […]
Read entry →July 4, 2013 · 949 words
Cemetery Ridge
150 years ago today George Pickett sent his division of Virginians up Cemetery Ridge and did his part to extinguish the very cause for which he was fighting. The Gettysburg battlefield is the single bloodiest patch of ground in the U.S., and features what is often called “the high water mark of the Confederacy.” (I [&h
Read entry →July 2, 2013 · 363 words
Blind Taste
I like a good glass of wine now and again. I tend to buy moderately-priced wines, neither cheap nor dear. And I’m finding support for my position in dozens of tests that seem to show that the art and science of wine tasting is, for the most part, utter delusion. A 2008 paper in The Journal of Wine […]
Read entry →June 30, 2013 · 54 words
Toolbox Cleans House
Congratulations to Taos Toolbox graduate Saladin Ahmed, whose Throne of the Crescent Moon just won a Locus Award! And congratulations as well to Nancy Kress, my co-instructor, whose “After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall” just took the novella award. We are Taos Toolbox, and we live in the Province of Awesom
Read entry →June 29, 2013 · 351 words
Enter Mr. Depp
Johnny Depp and Morgan Freeman are making one of them post-holocaust flicks in my neighborhood. Parts of downtown Belen have been grimed and gritted up to look suitably battered by time and ill fortune— not that some parts of the downtown didn’t look like that to begin with. When photography begins on Monday, it’
Read entry →June 29, 2013 · 127 words
Two Centimeters Forward, One Centimeter Back
This week has been full of really insignificant achievement. Time after time, I’ve started to accomplish some trivial task, only to have it take hours out of my day and prevent me from doing the stuff I actually want to do. Like write. And then yesterday, just as I was buckling down to a job I […]
Read entry →June 27, 2013 · 99 words
New Wind
New Mexico author Emily Mah Tippets has done an interview with New Mexico writer Sally Gwylan, and is also giving away a free copy of Sally’s new book, A Wind Out of Canaan. It’s a gutsy, beautifully written story that starts with child hobos in the Great Depression, and leads to alternate worlds, questions of [&hellip
Read entry →June 26, 2013 · 74 words
Textbook: Deep State
A scene from my novel Deep State comes to life as Turkish police shoot down a protestor’s camera drone. Apparently the video was taken on June 11. Before it was knocked down, the drone managed to capture part of the police assault on Gezi Park. Here it is, complete with absurdly dramatic music. (The actual […]
Read entry →June 26, 2013 · 131 words
Not Easy Being Green
Marvel Comics isn’t content, apparently, with conquering the world of cinema. Now Marvel has its sights set on . . . romance fiction! What in the name of Millie the Model is this? It’s double-barreled chick-lit, in the form of books featuring the romantic adventures of She-Hulk and Rogue. While I don’t know much about
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