Per Diem

The Price of a Taste for Beef

2009-10-15T15:30:00-04:00

The Sunday New York Times of a little over a week ago (Sunday, 4 October 2009) has a chilling account of the effects of a particularly virulent strain of E.Coli on a young woman in the midwest. Ordinarily a vegetarian, she consumed a hamburger at a family barebecue, eating a...

What is strange

2009-08-06T09:29:04-04:00

[written 2009 July 31 Co-posted on the 02138.com blog] What is strange about produce shopping in France were all the apples available throughout the summer. I don't know where they were coming from, as I didn't buy anyway. My cling fruit juices were flowing as is appropriate. The pears were...

Response to Michael Pollan article

2009-08-02T16:31:13-04:00

2009August02 4:32 PM Today, the NYTimes ran an article in their magazine. It is here, written by Michael Pollan, who has become a prominent crusader for matters culinary, gustatory, and nutritional, especially as they have an impact universally, well, in the United States and, by implication, for the rest of...

2009July23 7:20 AM A rough translation of the 1st paragraph of Le Guide Ganti

2009-07-23T01:19:56-04:00

Arguably—well I would argue it—the best guide to dining in the south of France is Le Guide Gantié, the eponymous bible to good tables and where to find a decent room in the six départements of Provence–Côte D’Azur (not to mention some of the better regional goodies to take home)...

City Boy Takes a Hike in La France Profonde

2009-07-22T12:05:00-04:00

I took the steep ribbed rocky road behind the cemetery. Earth and stones terre rouge sere and sharp tricky underfoot, that turn the color of dried blood in rain, unctuous and sticky and stain the soles tenaciously. The road debouches on the main road, far below the junction to the...

For One Who Came Here, Using Her Last Remaining Strength, To Spend Her Last Days on Earth

2009-06-12T10:38:22-04:00

[a poem, the first I've written in 25 years; I started as a poet, many many years ago, as a much younger man; this may be the last again, for a while... I hope not] For all of them alive I love, in memory of all I loved, now dead...

The Expense of Spirit

2009-04-05T21:07:00-04:00

In a virtual conversation about pursuing a spiritual life, and its importance, I had the chance to say the following. I’ve always felt it to be a lamentable condition that a continually growing number of people have lost contact with their own spirit, or, to say it more conventionally, their...

2009March14 2:55 PM What I've Learned

2009-03-14T14:55:55-04:00

Whatever the motive of the person who feels compelled to talk about your behavior, if you feel it requires a response: comment or explanation, don’t bother. Whatever you say, you’ll then be told you’re being defensive. Many women will see the only gauge of your interest in them in terms...

When Death Shall Have Dominion

2009-03-04T22:46:00-05:00

It doesn’t matter if life beckons. If the call of love is faint or strong, echoes in the wilderness I retreated from when I found a home so long ago with the woman I loved, do love, even unto death, the wilderness to which death has forced me to return, no matter. It doesn't matter the condition of my heart, neither the capacity for nor the openness to feeling for another.

Zeitgeist and politics

2009-03-04T07:44:10-05:00

I'll give the right wing this. They're clever in their malice. The left may have earnestness, and something short of sanctimony (take a moderate-left fiscal conservative, add sanctimony: result? Joe Lieberman), but they sure don't have a sense of humor. Just yesterday I heard this one. You know about Obama's...