Armchair Travel

• Surrealistic Sculptures

  My friend Anne Stewart posted a link to this site on Facebook. It has some incredibly lifelike sculptures by Ron Muek and others.
  
  
  
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  Posted: November 23, 2009, 5:06pm EST
  

• Looking for Lincoln

  
  We have a nice new housemate, so I'm trying to tidy up around the house and get rid of some clutter, and I tackle this pile of magazines from my mom's house, old New Yorkers where I've already read the cartoons. Maybe I could get' [...]
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  Posted: November 18, 2009, 11:05pm EST
  

• The Enemy is Retreating; It's Time to Charge

  I believe it's time to take over the party of Abraham Lincoln and restore it to its original principles. I believe the best thing people of conscience can do right now is to join the Republican Party.
  
  I am an ardent supporter of President Obama, but that's because he's' [...]
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  Posted: November 16, 2009, 11:30pm EST
  

• Hadley History

  
  I went to two very interesting lectures in Hadley yesterday. Hadley is just south of Sunderland, where I live, and the town recently celebrated its 350th birthday. Part of the observance was the publication of a book called Cultivating a Past: Essays on the [...]
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  Posted: November 16, 2009, 6:12pm EST
  

• Moments of Delight

  
  My daughter Sarah is just back from Oaxaca, Mexico, and I'm just tickled that she went there for GoNOMAD and had a great time. It's not exactly a free vacation, because it's work, but it's the kind of work you want.
  
  Just talking about [...]
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  Posted: November 12, 2009, 11:31pm EST
  

• Baby With Spaghetti

  
  This photo is by Jordan Kauffman, whom I do not know. My Groton buddy Stanley Matthews posted it on Facebook. [...]
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  Posted: November 12, 2009, 5:16pm EST
  

• Cornelia Hancock's Rosy Cheeks

  I'm learning a lot from Cornelia Hancock, the 23-year-old New Jersey woman who arrived at Gettysburg three days after the battle. [Letter of a Civil War Nurse] She almost didn't get there. In Baltimore her party met Dorothea Dix, superintendent of Army nurses.
  
  "She looked the nurses over" [...]
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  Posted: November 11, 2009, 9:46pm EST
  

• Futile Care

  When my mom was in the hospital in Springfield, we asked them to provide what is called "comfort care only." That means they don't do a lot of invasive tests and IVs and catheters.
  
  A doctor came over to us and told us we were doing the right thing' [...]
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  Posted: November 06, 2009, 5:37pm EST
  

• Spartacus and the Essene

  
  He stuck up for the lowly and the oppressed. He preached a new kingdom of peace and justice. He was crucified but he lives on. You know who I mean... Spartacus!
  I'm reading The Gladiators by Arthur Koestler and I'm getting caught up in his [...]
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  Posted: November 05, 2009, 10:51pm EST
  

• The Will of God Almighty

  I have written before about my friend Daoud Nassar, the founder of the Tent of Nations near Bethlehem, a center for international peace and understanding.
  
  The Israelis have been trying to seize Daoud's land, despite the fact that his grandfather paid taxes to the Ottoman Turks and has' [...]
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  Posted: November 02, 2009, 5:35pm EST
  

• The Most Beautiful Road in the World

  I just took a drive down what for me is the most beautiful road in the world, New Hampshire Route 153. For some it's the road to Freedom (about four miles south of Eaton) but for me it's the road to South Conway, where I have traveled for more than [...]
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  Posted: November 01, 2009, 7:35pm EST
  

• Ministrations of Mercy

  I've been reading Letters of a Civil War Nurse by Cornelia Hancock, and it's really absorbing to walk with her around the battlefield at Gettysburg after the Union Army had moved on, a scene of unimaginable carnage where 300 surgeons worked for five days performing amputations, filling wagon after [...]
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  Posted: October 29, 2009, 10:57pm EDT
  

• Biting Your Nails in Aquitaine

  Funny the stuff that sticks in your head. At Groton School I played the third priest in a production of T.S. Eliot's Murder in the Cathedral, directed by Carl Tucker, who also played the part of Thomas Becket.
  
  Philip Kunhardt the third also turned in a stellar performance as' [...]
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  Posted: October 20, 2009, 10:14pm EDT
  

• A Paragraph by Barbara Tuchman

  I bought a box of about forty volumes of American Heritage -- bone dry, no mold -- for eight dollars. So I've been reading about Commodore Vanderbuilt's two sons, and General Knox's estate in Thomaston, Maine, as well as an article by Barara Tuchman, written in 1970.
  
  She' [...]
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  Posted: October 16, 2009, 10:32pm EDT
  

• An Epic Sea Battle

  
  
  
  
  
  The following is a story by Steve Hoyland, Sr. in Sea Breeze in Bayside, Texas, sent to me by my friend Sevie Ashley, editor of 008 Magazine in Lafayette, Louisiana:
  
  
  Two weeks ago a group of four men, Steve [...]
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  Posted: October 14, 2009, 5:52pm EDT
  

• Literary Comfort Food

  I want to continue blogging about some books I've started: Letters of a Civil War Nurse by Cornelia Hancock, The Lobster Coast by Colin Woodard, Maine Memories by Elizabeth Coatsworth, and Arundel by Kenneth Roberts.
  
  But after my trip to Chicago and my mom's memorial [...]
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  Posted: October 13, 2009, 11:42pm EDT
  

• More Joy Than Sorrow

  We held a wonderful memorial service for my mom this weekend where those who loved her shared their remembrances of a remarkable woman who spent her life making the world a nicer place.
  
  I think everybody there, myself included, learned a lot that they didn't know about Sally Hartshorne,' [...]
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  Posted: October 05, 2009, 11:36pm EDT
  

• Bringing Bloggers Together

  I just came back from a really fun and interesting trip to Chicago for the Orbitz First Annual Blogger Day -- I'm calling it that because I hope it becomes an annual event.
  
  Bringing bloggers together for real-time conversations is a good cause, and one of the things we' [...]
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  Posted: October 01, 2009, 11:21pm EDT
  

• Orbitz Blogger Day

  Had a great time at the Orbitz first annual Blogger Day at the company's headquarters in Chicago. It's great to see a corporation with a conscience.
  
  Met the president and CEO Barney Harford and learned about the company's commitment to equal rights for all Americans, and their support for' [...]
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  Posted: September 30, 2009, 9:37pm EDT
  

• Cornelia Hancock, Angel of Mercy

  Here is another excerpt from Letters of a Civil War Nurse, by Cornelia Hancock, who arrived in Gettysburg three days after the battle. She is seeking the hospital of the 12th New Jersey regiment in which her brother is serving:
  
  "As we made our way to a little woods" [...]
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  Posted: September 28, 2009, 10:35pm EDT
  

• Letters of a Civil War Nurse

  I went up to Montague last Saturday for some flea markets and an auction. There was a bookstore there with books three for a dollar. I had the feeling that if they didn't go for that price they might be... disposed of. So I went through them carefully.
  
  I' [...]
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  Posted: September 24, 2009, 12:26am EDT
  

• The Sun Wheel at UMass Amherst

  
  
  
  I've always enjoyed looking at the standing stones behind the UMass football stadium, but I never knew who put them there or what their purpose was.
  
  Tuesday I met astonomer Judith Young, the driving force behind the sun wheel, as it is' [...]
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  Posted: September 23, 2009, 5:24pm EDT
  

• A Great Year for Good Reads

  I've found a lot of great reading this summer, more than enough for several winters. For one thing, I found a box of American Heritage -- about forty volumes -- for eight bucks, and, you collectors out there will appreciate this: it's bone dry.
  
  You find boxes like this [...]
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  Posted: September 21, 2009, 11:02pm EDT
  

• Maine Memories and Spider Migrations

  
  Maine Memories (1971) by Elizabeth Coatsworth is a real treasure. Besides the great stories I mentioned before, there are personal recollections of her life in Nobleboro with her husband Henry Beston.
  
  One afternoon while they were out canoeing on Damariscotta Pond, they saw what [...]
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  Posted: September 18, 2009, 12:00am EDT
  

• Sally Hartshorne

  Sarah Jane Dickson Hartshorne - Sally, as she was known - died peacefully September 6 at the Center for Extended Care in Amherst, Massachusetts.
  
  She was born October 27, 1928, in Montclair, New Jersey, to Charles Keith Dickson and Anne Brown Dickson. She grew up in New Canaan, Connecticut, [...]
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  Posted: September 14, 2009, 5:43pm EDT
  

• For Real Comfort, There's Northing Like a Shroud

  I saw a book I couldn't pass up at the South Hadley flea market last week, Maine Memories by Elizabeth Coatsworth. It's a series of stories about life on Damariscotta Pond, where she lived with her husband, naturalist Henry Beston.
  
  This is a fantastic book. Coatsworth includes a lot [...]
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  Posted: September 08, 2009, 8:48pm EDT
  

• A Coat, A Hat and a Gun

  "I got up on my feet and went over to the bowl in the corner and threw cold water on my face. After a little while I felt a little better, but very little. I needed a drink, I needed a lot of life insurance, I needed a vacation, I" [...]
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  Posted: September 02, 2009, 10:44pm EDT
  

• The Lobster Coast

  The most seasoned traveler I know spends at least a week and usually a good deal more on the Coast of Maine, and if you've been there, you know why. If you haven't, I can only say you should go and see the Gulf of Maine.
  
  However you might [...]
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  Posted: August 31, 2009, 9:34pm EDT
  

• Kissing an Idea and Tossing It Into the Wind

  I don't know how much you know about Search Engine Optimization. I certainly don't know much about it, just enough to be dangerous, but I also have four years of day-to-day experience. It's a new economic fact of life.
  
  I've been lucky enough to have a bird's-eye view of [...]
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  Posted: August 22, 2009, 12:25am EDT
  

• Brave Sweet Sally Soldiers On

  My mom has actually regained consciousness, sort of, which is a big surprise to my brothers and me, because we thought that Alzheimer's had shut down her brain and we were accustomed to the inexorable, non-reversible nature of the disease.
  
  She has had a very fast-acting version which took' [...]
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  Posted: August 17, 2009, 10:58pm EDT
  

• Brave Sweet Sally

  It looks like my mom, who made me bookish, is not going to regain consciousness. She was living in an assisted living facility for alzheimers patients with a yellow cockatoo that dances when you whistle, and we thought she'd be there for years.
  
  She had lost all recollection, but' [...]
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  Posted: August 15, 2009, 10:25pm EDT
  

• Visions of a Better World

  You don't have to be a Trekkie to like Star Trek Memories by William Shatner with Chris Kreski. I know, I know, books that have a 'with' are usually stupid junk, but I think here Shatner was just acknowledging his collaborator who clearly did a lot of leg work collecting' [...]
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  Posted: August 14, 2009, 12:03am EDT
  

• Messages From the Great Beyond

  My friend Rick talks to the spirits and reads the Tarot and subscribes to 'esoteric' magazines, and he's been a good friend, so I listen with an open mind. He fixed my wheelbarrow and had my Kathy Brown poster mounted.
  
  He was definitely there for me during a rough [...]
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  Posted: August 11, 2009, 11:40pm EDT
  

• The Ideal Whereunto Mankind Slowly Draws Near

  
  I take back everything I ever said about transcendentalism being boring. I'm not taking back anything I ever said about Bronson Alcott or Ralph Waldo Emerson -- those guys are boring, boring, boring. It doesn't necessarily mean they had the wrong idea.
  
  Far less [...]
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  Posted: August 09, 2009, 9:27pm EDT
  

• Developing as a Writer

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  One of the coolest things about working for GoNOMAD is editing stories by people from all walks of life all over the world, including our bright and lively college interns. You get to see people develop as writers.
  
  GoNOMAD has been a springboard for many writers whose [...]
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  Posted: August 06, 2009, 11:08pm EDT
  

• Heading for the Light

  I found a cassette of the Traveling Wilbury's, and I've been playing it whenever I have to travel in an enclosed vehicle. All the songs are great, tho' I'm a little sick of the Monkey Man, and they always get these really great groves going.
  
  The lyrics always sound [...]
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  Posted: August 06, 2009, 1:14am EDT
  

• Pre-Code Movies and Salacious Paperbacks

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  I found an interesting estate sale in Amherst last week. I got a nice set of vintage luggage from the 1940s maybe, three suitcases that fit inside one another. It was in the original box, so I figure the decedent [...]
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  Posted: August 05, 2009, 12:27am EDT
  

• The Fine Art of Being Yourself

  Tonight I took the bull by the horns and finished my Houston story. It took seven hours of intense grappling, but it's done. I have a deal with GoNOMAD that when I'm fussing over my stories, I do it off the clock, as one of our writers would do.
  
  [...]
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  Posted: August 04, 2009, 2:47am EDT
  

• Jimmy and Me Went to School

  When you first wrote, "Jimmy and me went to school," the teacher said it should be "Jimmy and I went to school." Okay. So far so good.
  
  Then you wrote, "The teacher erudicated Jimmy and I." Nope. It should be, "Jimmy and me." The way to figure it out [...]
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  Posted: July 28, 2009, 11:50pm EDT
  

• A Tribute to the Predicate Nominative

  Some scholars believe the sole purpose of the predicate nominative is to confuse and confound students of grammar. It's a holdover from Latin, and I think it's on its way out.
  
  The verb 'to be' - like other linking verbs - does not take an object, so the pronoun [...]
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  Posted: July 26, 2009, 1:42am EDT
  

• The Bishop of America

  
  When I was a kid I got an American Revolution chess set for my birthday, which I left at my parents for rainy summer vacation days, but it sat there unopened in the game cupboard for thirty years.
  Since we just found nursing home placements [...]
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  Posted: July 23, 2009, 5:57pm EDT
  

• Towns Are Like People

  When I worked in newspapers I covered a lot of town governments around New England. One of my first beats was a bunch of towns in New Hampshire and Vermont where I would keep track of the selectmen and the school board and the sewer district and everything else.
  
  [...]
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  Posted: July 22, 2009, 10:59pm EDT
  

• Make the Government Pay

  We just had a referendum in our town about whether we wanted good schools, whether we wanted to pay our teachers a living wage, whether we wanted curbside trach pick-up. Of course the vote was a resounding No.
  
  We saw all these hand-painted signs up in town, "Vote Yes" [...]
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  Posted: July 19, 2009, 2:18am EDT
  

• Way to Go Zach!

  As much as any other arugula-chomping, NPR-listening, left-leaning liberal, I'm savoring the sexual indiscretions of the right-wing bible-thumpers, but I think it's important to savor only the hypocrisy of it all.
  
  That is, here's a guy who said someone else should resign because they had an affair, but he' [...]
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  Posted: July 17, 2009, 11:34pm EDT
  

• Preppy Loafers For a Dime

  
  I went up to the Deerfield Academy tag sale a couple of weeks ago to get me some preppie shoes, and sure enough I found a pair of really cool loafers that someone wore in the snow and they got wet and there was road [...]
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  Posted: July 15, 2009, 12:02am EDT
  

• Usisng the Entire Fleeet

  
  
  
  Back in 2004 I was in the market for a used car, so I went out shopping. I know nothing about cars, and I was talking about how hard it was with my buddies at Yankee Candle. And they were guys who knew [...]
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  Posted: July 12, 2009, 11:24pm EDT
  

• The Handmade Blade, The Child's Balloon

  
  

  Darkness at the break of noon
  Shadows even the silver spoon
  The handmade blade, the child's balloon
  Eclipses both the sun and moon...

  
  

  (Bob Dylan - "It's Alright Ma")

  I don't know about you, but for me, that's pretty punchy poetry. Martin Scorsese asked Bob Dylan' [...]

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  Posted: July 11, 2009, 12:06am EDT
  

• The Pudgy Guy on the Vespa

  When I was a young and callow fellow, my great friend Ian had a house in Tinkerville, New Hampshire. Ian was, as you might say, rich (and handsome and funny) for all the good it did him.
  
  The property was dubbed Uncle Veeny's Farm, named for Uncle Veeny's' [...]
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  Posted: July 07, 2009, 11:58pm EDT
  

• Now to Get Down

  This little guy was getting picked on by the other baby goats -- kids can be mean sometimes. So he clambered up on this wooden spool.
  
  This is the kind of thing I see when I ride my scooter.
  [...]
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  Posted: July 06, 2009, 6:37pm EDT
  

• Who Murdered the Promiscuous Icelandic Architect?

  I'm getting emails from all over the blogosphere saying, "Well? You said you were going to find out who killed Birna the promiscuous Icelandic architect in Yrsa Sigurdardottir's book My Soul to Take. Was it the Chinese stockbroker, as you predicted?"
  
  Well it turns out he's Japanese, and no,' [...]
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  Posted: June 29, 2009, 11:40pm EDT