Yesterday afternoon as I was returning home from visiting a friend, I turned down a county road that traverses through the sagebrush uplands next to the New Fork River and noticed a pickup truck out in the sage, with two men near the tailgate, with a bird dog. Intrigued, I drove by slowly, and finally …
Author: Steve Bodio
Neglected Book
Rebecca O’Connor’s Lift, her literary falconry memoir and one of the best falconer’s memoirs ever written, had such good press I thought it would automatically be come a success (this despite my having written to her about “… terrific reviews, indifferent agents, incompetent publishers, [and] few sales…”). But NOOO. She has sold only 411 copies. …
Commonplace Book: Old School
A conversation between the late Jack Mavrogordato, old school English falconer (he knew T H White, who described him as “a charming man, approximately five inches tall…”), and the more ancient Major Allen, about the still more ancient E B Michell, past master of the merlin, ca. 1976, as recorded in the English Falconer: M: …
More Commonplace Book Fun
From Charles Darwin’s “pro” list in favor of marriage when he was a young man: “A constant companion, one who will feel interested in one (a friend in old age)– object to be beloved and play with.” Pop song constantly playing on Zimbabwe radio when I was there many years ago: “Be patient You will …
A Commonplace Book
For years I have kept what the English call a commonplace book, a place to write down quotes. I gave it up a few years ago, but have started up again. Re- reading it (or them; I have several volumes), I have discovered things worth adding to the blog, from the whimsical to the serious. …
(And re “Jingiz”)…
Re post below: some people think “Jingiz” (simplest spelling) is pretentious- also the other variations like Jengiz, Jengis, even “Chingiss”. Look, I’ll grant that English vowels for this name are arbitrary, and which you use are up to you. But if you look at old pronunciations, frickin’ “GENGHIS” is supposed to be pronounced with a …
Old Eastern Salukis, Volume–??
I have seen this Jingiz or Kubilai- era Chinese image before but only in poor quality. And it is a brindle! Click to, as they say in Bloggish, embiggen.
From New Mexico…
I don’t usually pass on Internet forwards but this one from Gail Goodman is irresistible for any New Mexican. All true too… You know you’re from New Mexico if. . . . You’ve had a school day canceled because there was 2 inches of snow on the ground. You know what an “arroyo” is. Your …
For Rifle Loonies…
John Barsness invented the term “Rifle Loony” long before his new book, Obsessions of a Rifle Loony. It is not necessarily a negative term; the readers of this blog who like guns are extremely likely to fall into the category. This is a book for not- so- rich devotees of good, useful tools who want …
Gun Book Reviews
I have received three good gun books lately, and I think I can almost see a narrative thread between them. They are not, as so many magazine articles seem to be today, advertisements in the form of product reviews. The first, Hemingway’s Guns, by Silvio Calabi, Steve Helsey, and Roger Songer, is a scholarly but …