An essay I published on this blog will appear in an upcoming volume of Greenhaven Press’s Perspectives on Modern World History. Greenhaven Press’s Perspectives on Modern World History series is collection of research books for high school and early college students. There have been previous volumes on topics such as Martin Luther King’s assassination, the Chernobyl disaster, […]
Here’s how we ended up in Piggott, Arkansas. If you had asked me where Ernest Hemingway wrote A Farewell to Arms, my first guess would have been Paris. Then Key West. Then maybe Cuba, or Pamplona, or Oak Park. The last place I ever would have guessed is Piggott, Arkansas, but it tuns out that that’s […]
I’m about to turn 36, at which point I will have spent more time on this earth than Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart did. If you find that a morbid way to celebrate a birthday, then come on in–we’re just getting started. Please don’t get me wrong. I have a wonderful, happy, fulfilling life. But the day […]
The Tennessee Governor’s Books from Birth Foundation, in conjunction with Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library, provides free books for children from birth until the age of five. But there’s an unlikely organization that is actually destroying some of these brand new books–the United States Post Office. (Link to petition at the end of this post.) First, […]
Born on this date was Dock Ellis, the man who pitched a no-hitter while on an acid trip. Dock Ellis, born in southern Los Angeles on this date in 1945, was a promising athlete in both baseball and basketball who nearly saw his career derailed by his bad behavior. He got in trouble for drinking […]
This is “Last Chance to Change,” a student work I wrote and recorded with Graham Burks back in 1996. It’s been lost to me until this week, when I digitized it from the original quarter-inch tape. When I was an undergraduate at Rhodes College, I took a music theory class from professor David Ramsey. He […]
I don’t know how I’ve made it this long in my life without reading Mark Twain’s “Advice to Youth.” Here it is in its entirety. “Advice to Youth” Mark Twain 1882 Being told I would be expected to talk here, I inquired what sort of talk I ought to make. They said it should […]
All photos taken with this iPod. See all these pictures and more.