Hat tip to Arthur Wilderson for this story, a write-up about a remarkably similar phenomenon in England to what we’ve been discussing over here lately: nostalgia for free-range children who spend their days outdoors. Good title, too: Rearing Children in Captivity At the school gates of Birchington Primary School, on the Kent coast, a group …
Author: Matt Mullenix
Going On About Helen
I’m going to break a small confidence and relate a thing Steve said to me in the privacy of his kitchen. I was going on about Helen MacDonald, drunk after our detour to the Golden Spur and full of good meat from the Bodio larder. A point at which, in other words, I was babbling. …
2Blowhards
We have so been outdone.
Why We Blog
Darren Naish pricked us with the latest self-replicating blogger bug: Why blog? So I’ll start our reply (a brief one in my case) and let Reid and Steve follow up. First, this question is worthy of a real essay. Mary’s was wonderful from a few months back, though I couldn’t find it to link (Mary?). …
Decline and Fall of….Fairfax, Co., VA?
During my father’s tour of duty at the Pentagon, a two-plus year rotation in which we lived in civilian housing and I attended public school, I got a rare taste of American pie. Prior to this, and afterwards until Dad retired, I knew only the cloistered and comfortable life of a military brat on bases …
Matt’s Stack of Books
I’ve been avoiding the book stand photo for sheer embarrassment. I’m the token short-bus rider at the Querencia School for Bibliophiles. For a long time I had no stack at all. I read one book at a time, and that one slowly. Lately I’ve been a more productive reader as measured in “books taken down …
Working Like a Dog
In an email exchange following my post on Meet Mr. Grizzly, Gregg, Steve and I wondered whether such dogs as Stevens describes could be made today. Your opinions invited and welcome! Matt: “My question is: Without the lifestyle (ranching, cowboy-ing, big game hunting on horseback, life pre-electric and pre-internal-combustion) setting the challenge and the training …
Orson Scott Card on American Car Culture
Find linked at 2Blowhards a column by sci-fi writer Orson Scott Card pondering the elephant in the garage: how car culture impacts us, literally, and how a different sort of American landscape might look. Steve, Reid and I are all sci-fi fans of various pedigree. We spend a lot of time puzzled about how things …
Meet Mr. Grizzly
I’ve been dreaming of deadlines, typing memos and organizing items on my desk in my sleep. This has made of Matt a dull (or duller) boy. But like the time, three weeks after my twins were born, when I ate six grapefruits in a sleep and vitamin-deprived orgy of gorging, I’ve just devoured the book …
A Springtime Run
My friend Jonathan Millican, falconer and Marine helicopter pilot, passed through Baton Rouge last weekend and stopped for a visit. It was uncharacteristically cold, which is hard to tell from the Springtime look of the field we slipped into for a stroll with our dogs. But days like that are some of my favorites in …