Blog
Asking questions can lead you to new places. Writing helps bring you to answers. And more questions.
Here, I’ve collected writings on a number of topics. Sometimes they’ve been published elsewhere, and other times they’re just for this blog.
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I’ve come to talk to you again. North Carolina Pastor Alan Martin is reaching out to poor souls—that is, if they’re handing him a bowl of spaghetti. In September, he bought an Olive Garden never ending pasta pass for $100. Only 1,000 people total bought the pasta pass, and any one of them could break…
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When the tour guide said Emily Dickinson’s bedroom was under construction and therefore off limits, I felt so relieved. This great dread dissipated like vapor, and I enjoyed the rest of the 90-minute tour much more than the first portion. But I couldn’t explain it: Why didn’t I want her room, where the magic happened,…
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“We have too much light to see the night sky in Indiana,” the question-raiser started. About two hours after Neil deGrasse Tyson’s lecture at the University of Indianapolis began, Tyson opened up the floor for questions. “So I was wondering how you see stars in New York?” “Oh,” said the director of the Hayden Planetarium…
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Portland
Driving off like a postman, With the aerodynamics and color of a cardboard box, Because I wanted to meet you. It was not cruising along with crunchy white static blanketing windows in Wyoming, being buried, yet unaware after I emerged into Montana, the snow relented, but I did not because I wanted to be with…
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Survival of the fittest
“I’m waiting outside of Toys ‘R’ Us at four in the morning,” is a pretty creepy statement. And it always should be, even on a night like this when there are so many people. It is pretty cold. Everyone is armored in scarves and hats, coats and gloves. They look fierce, like they had ripped…
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A cow in King Arthur’s court.
It was about a half-mile amble uphill. All the way we were surrounded by trees, which provided shade and kept grass from growing except in sparse patches. Where were we headed? Camelot. No, we weren’t medieval knights or peasants. We were mostly college kids who ended up in Cadbury on the advice of a travel…
James Figy 