Old Ones Dream

Helene In the Southern Mountains

Everyone in Brevard, my home town, is unscathed—just inconvenienced. Out in the county the damage is much greater and many are without power for a week or more. They are not unscathed in the counties east, north and west of us. Poor people. Unspeakable suffering. Hundreds have died and many... Read more →

Chat GPT and Me

When asked what I write, I would sometimes respond that I write creative non-fiction articles that I publish on the internet and that no one reads. That is no longer true. My work, and that of other writers, is now being read by AI engines and then used to train... Read more →

Tanne Mouzon Brabham Traywick 1944 - 2023

Completion of El Camino de Santiago -October 2014 Tanne took flight December 26, 2023 at 10:47 AM. Said she was going to hike the AT. She was surrounded by her family and her close Camino companions. We took her body home with us and cherished her memory for 2 nights.... Read more →

No Country for Genius Siblings

When I picked up “The Passenger” by Cormac McCarthy I barely put it down until I finished. I had the same experience with “Stella Maris,” an addendum, or coda, to “The Passenger” but published 6 weeks later. It is all a mysterious tale of love, loss, guilt, grief, genius, insanity,... Read more →

Alexandria, And Done

The Alexandria Quartet is a tetralogy by Lawrence Durrell set in that city in the years leading to, and including, World War II. The work was immediately recognized among the most influential fiction of the 20th Century. I have been reading and re-reading it for 60 years. Recently finishing it... Read more →

Cormac McCarthy 1933 - 2023

On Monday I couldn’t wait any longer, and ordered the recent works of Cormac McCarthy, "The Passenger" and "Stella Maris." McCarthy reportedly died the next day. In the three days since, there has been an outpouring of literary obituaries and reviews of his life work, and rightly so—he is one... Read more →

God and Daddy

God and Daddy Back in the 1970s I conceived of a collection called “The Poetry of Carly Simon.” Nothing was done on that topic by me or, as far as I know, anyone else. Fifty years later one of her resonant creations came to mind—I cannot recall what triggered the... Read more →

My Mule in the Kentucky Derby: Magnolia Elegy

Photo Courtesy of Classic Woodie The story goes that a man attempted to enter his mule in the Kentucky Derby. He knew that he had no chance to win, but he reasoned that "… the association would do him good." So, in similar circumstances, I entered my recent book in... Read more →

Black Friday. Cyber Monday. And So it Goes.

I hope that you were mostly immune to all of that conspicuous consumption and survived it with your finances and sense of well-being intact. REI closes their doors on Black Friday with the idea that everyone might stay outdoors for another day of fun. That is a responsible commercial model—but... Read more →

Things Happen

In an instant your life can change. There might be a terrible accident. Or a medical diagnosis. A portal into a parallel universe opened in your closet? Or, what if you read a book that grabbed you, turned you upside down and shook you, causing the scales of culture to... Read more →