He was there the day we rolled into town, a mere 13 months ago. Back then he was a bit brawny, suntanned, with short brown hair. He looked like he might have been a cub scout once. I don’t know his real name. I just call him the Yorba boy because of where he lives. … Continue reading
Latest Entries
Enwrought with golden and silverlight – Vancouver in passing
Annie Dillard wrote about Lummi Island in the slender book “Holy the Firm.” I read this in religion class in college and largely missed the point. At least that’s what my professor said. While he wanted me to get into the aspects of theology her work might uncover, I wanted to focus on the wondrous … Continue reading
Food / Things I Like / Travel
Drive along any highway and a place will reveal itself to you
Drive along any highway and a place will reveal itself to you. The way that Ohio folds into Pennsylvania, along Route 80 East, as the Great Lakes basin abuts the watersheds of other rivers that lead you into Pittsburgh, such a uniquely hilly city along three rivers. Here they forged the backbone of our rail … Continue reading
Detroit normal and other impossible things
Detroit, one month later. When I first returned from my European adventure, I was irritable. Then mopey. Frustration was followed by resignation. Finally, acceptance. The five stages of re-acculturation. It was as if Detroit had saved up all its goodies for my return. Bankrupt city. DIA treasures potentially saleable. Teenager in my neighborhood violently raped. … Continue reading
When your choices are die or die, why not an uprising?
When at last the war you’re in becomes too much to take and you’d rather be right than alive, comes the uprising. All of us have been occupied by forces that are hostile to what we believe in. Or maybe to situations that are untenable. Be it a relationship, a job, a place… we all … Continue reading
The first day back
I’m going to blog about my Marshall Memorial Experience writ large… one day, one month and one year after returning home.Of course, I’m sure I’ll have burbles of thoughts and insights in between, but here’s where I’ll take a holistic view of its impact on me (and with any luck, the world). Not driving for … Continue reading
If everyone is looking for it, then no one is finding it
Americans, generally speaking, don’t think about culture in the same way as Europeans. For us, culture can be about creating something new and a process of becoming. As individuals we think about our heritage, sure. But we don’t linger on the culture of our forebears. Like the kid on the shoulders in a crowd, we … Continue reading
The persistence of (food) memory
Whenever I want to take a trip back to my roots, I think about my grandmother’s kitchen. I inherited a dog-eared cookbook from her; it’s got Cajun recipes galore and looks pretty good; however, I doubt she used it. Not even once. Someone probably gave it to her. She cooked from memory mostly, or from … Continue reading
Skopje, you’re speaking so loudly I can’t hear what you’re saying
If I had started my life in Skopje instead of Philadelphia, I would have been born in a republic called Yugoslavia. I would probably have Slavic Macedonian ethnicity, but may also have been of Albanian, Turkish, Roma, or Serbian descent and that would define my culture, education and sense of place. In 1991, if this … Continue reading
Dipping into the pathos of Salonika
In 1916 a writer for the National Geographic was struck by Salonica’s seeming indifference to the needs of the tourists who came on the trail of its past. “So little indeed has she yet taken in, as the remainder of Europe has so profitably done, the possibilities of a past that I was unable to … Continue reading
glossy&rowdy 