• As the ice retreats

    Antarctic ice loss between 1996 and 2006, overlaid on a Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) mosaic image of Antarctica. The colors indicate the speed of the ice loss. Purple/red is fast. Green is slow. Image credit: NASA Antarctica looks to us, on our maps, as one roughly circular continent. Ground-penetrating radar, however, shows it as…

  • Emerson on our times

    In the midst of revising Babe in the Woods I came across a quote from Emerson that might almost be a commentary on our political season, and certainly is a commentary on our times. Written in August 1847, if you can believe it. The Superstitions of our Age: The fear of Catholicism; The fear of…

  • In this political year, this relentlessly political year, I think back to a poem I wrote in another political year, in a fit of weary impatience. Liberal or conservative, I just don’t like sheep. Libcon It must be nice (as people say) To always and automatically know What not to have to think about anything,…

  • Babe in the Woods — finished

    Finished revision three today, third time is a charm. Now to get it published. I didn’t expect this novel to proceed so straightforwardly and well. At 115,000  words, it’s considerably longer than my previous novel, Messenger, and considerably more complex. Yet it was a very easy novel to write in certain respects. I knew the…

  • Babe in the Woods — preface

    By way of a teaser, here’s the preface to Babe in the Woods, a novel. Prologue March 24, 1995 Friday night It was about six when I walked into the newsroom, a typical Friday night in progress. Joe Lampman looked up from his keyboard, saw me, and said, “Well! Back from the dead! How’d it…

  • A Trip to Iona (1)

    The first of several descriptions of a trip to Scotland and England that was in some ways a restless spiritual pilgrimage, more so than my trip to Glastonbury and other places last year. Iona  On Monday April 12, 2003, I realize that I want to go to Iona. I look for people to come with…

  • A Trip to Iona — June 7, 2003

    Saturday, June 7 Another breakfast at the hotel, then a cab to the train station at Crewe, a train to the Manchester airport, and a flight to Aberdeen. Traveling is easier alone. Although one might think that another person would help find things, and avoid mistakes, and share the load, in practice, it isn’t so.…

  • Eclipse Feb 20, 2008

    Before it began

  • Fabulous shot of the eclipse

    My friend Rich Spees, who is a photographer of professional caliber, sent me this, kindly noting “Remember Frank, my camera was about 7 times the cost of the one you have,” thus providing me with a built-in excuse. He said I could share this, so here it is. Pretty nifty, no?

  • A Trip to Iona — Monday June 9, 2003

    Monday, June 9 At 2:45 a.m. I note a dream, saying “active dreaming. May it continue.” The only thing I remember from this rather entertaining dream is giving my old college friend Dennis a boot in the tail because he got me in trouble with (the congressman I am working for?). I tell him that…