Sometimes the world slips through the window and joins us where we live. And, of course, the more fully we live, the more often it joins us. In December 1991, in the final sprint to finish my first big book, I found myself becoming more alert than usual. It was my first experience with the […]

If you own a bookstore you’d be very smart to hire me. I would never be late for work and would cheerfully clean the bathroom when necessary and add pennies from my own pocket to the take-a-penny dish. I would make your customers feel so welcome that they would run home and get their sleeping […]

“In thin oils she depicted clumsy beaches and clouds. Their foregrounds and middle grounds showed jetsam and wrack, stained waves, brown bottles, steamer shells, broken china, waxed paper, church keys, foil, nails sticking through in lumber, clamshells, tires, purses, shoes – only two or three objects on each canvas. With a sable brush she graphed […]

With labor day behind us and the first autumn leaves skittering across the patio, it’s time to roll up the sleeves and get to work. I’m not all that ambitious by nature, so it must be the cooler temperatures that have me energized. Or maybe it’s a residue of all those years of summer vacation […]

I’m not sure if we should be lionizing our geniuses, but in the face of all we don’t know, what else can we do? Albert Einstein is the nearest we’ve come so far to a secular wise man. Here he is on the subject he spent his life pondering: the mystery of the universe: “The […]

With two new websites, an electronic newsletter, and a Facebook page churning away via mysterious processes it seems I’ve parachuted into a futuristic cyber age powered by steam engines and magic. What’s next, a Tweeter account? Yes, if the wizards at Chelsea Bay Design and Maue Design have their way. In recent months Chelsea and […]

Sometimes you can pinpoint the moment exactly. Glenn Wolff and I remember the genesis of our first collaboration, It’s Raining Frogs and Fishes, which was originally published in 1992. It began when our mutual friend, the artist Bernie Knox, grabbed me by the arm and pulled me to the telephone in her house. She placed the receiver […]

Here’s what turns my crank: Free-flowing rivers in wild country, ponds hidden in tamarack swamps, campsites under white pines swaying in a breeze, trout gulping mayflies. I like pushing off in a canoe. I like slinging a backpack onto my shoulders. I like knowing that if I find a woods or a pond or a […]

“It is possible at last for Masa and me to imagine a little of what the ancient – archaic — mind and life of Japan were. And to see what could be restored to the life today. A lot of it is simply in being aware of clouds and wind.” – Gary Snyder, final lines […]

“I don’t know why I need to fish so much. For the good of my soul? The question makes me skittish. I prefer to think of fishing as a restorative to some vital thing — maybe soul, maybe heart, maybe vitality itself – that dwindles when we spend too