One of the most powerful things in the world is listening” — Scott Neumyer Detail of woodcut illustration from The Adventures of Philip on His Way Through the World by William Makepeace Thackeray (1889), courtesy Internet Archive via Wikimedia Commons (digital image by University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign) Talking, especially about oneself, seems easy to many […]
Reviews
The Narrow Road to Bashō: a short review of travel sketches
A short review of The Narrow Road to the Deep North and Other Travel Sketches by renowned seventeenth-century Japanese poet Matsuo Bashō.
In the between of who we are: contemplating the bardo
The moment of “between,” that instant of bardo in dreaming, in meditating, and in the pause between every breath, quivers with ambiguity. In the bardo between people awaits a double potential.
Finding Don McLean all along the roads we’ve traveled all our days
A review of Don McLean’s nearly forgotten self-titled album that explores alienation, separateness, the agony of memory, the deeply painful dimension of nostalgia.
Tracing Land and Race Across America: book review of Trace
Review of Trace: Memory, History, Race, & the American Landscape by Lauret Savoy, which weaves history, geology, and personal memoir in profound tales that peel back layers of a place called America.
Tales of a Place; Pilgrimage to a Full Moon Rising
Recent posts that review Kaniksu: Stories of the Northwest by Thomas F. Lacy, an engaging memoir of the Kaniksu of northern Idaho and the Lolo of western Montana in the 1920s and 1930s; and our monthly pilgrimage to Poplar Tree Lake in Meeman-Shelby Forest State Park to view the full moon rising ♨
Permanent Vacation: The Impermanence of Life in the National Parks
Review of Permanent Vacation: Twenty Writers on Work and Life in Our National Parks, edited by Kim Wyatt (Bona Fide Books, 2011), an assortment of short recollections by writers who lived and worked in national parks. Sometimes adventurous, even frightening, often poetic, this collection offers intimate views rarely experienced by the millions who enjoy American national parks each year. ♨
Spirituality in national parks: a review of Kerry Mitchell
Spirituality and the State by Kerry Mitchell examines state power through a lens of “spirituality” in America’s national parks. This book shows how affection for parklands relies on a love of nature which is also a love of oneself and of one’s nation. Though intellectually engaging, Mitchell grounds his analysis in stories of people enjoying national parks. ♨
Los Pastores: A Religious Pageant in San Antonio
The traditional Christmas pageant Los Pastores at Mission San José in San Antonio, Texas, recounts the tale of the shepherds’ journey to witness the newborn savior. The annual performance connects family, parishioners, and even outsiders in a liminal moment of common experience. ♨
The Hour of Land: Terry Tempest Williams on the National Parks
In her memoir The Hour of Land: A Personal Topography of America’s National Parks, Terry Tempest Williams offers an intimate portrait of national parks as she guides readers on a reverential tour of parks through meanings that these places have etched in her memory and experience.