Category Archives: books/film

On T.J. Stiles's "Custer's Trials: A Life on the Frontier of a New America": a Pulitzer That Deserves It

So I’ve been a fan of both (the celebrated myth of) George Armstrong Custer and the excellent historian/biographer T.J. Stiles for many years, and when these two worlds collided, it’s not surprising that I read Custer’s Trials: A Life on … Continue reading

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On Sonia Shah's "Pandemic" and Antarctica's Looming Meltdown: Drowning in a Sea Full of Germs

So a few years back I often wrote about Climate Change and its slo-mo catastrophe, especially when it seemed that we had the chance to alter our Titanic-like course toward that (melting) iceberg, but of late I’ve been more reticent, … Continue reading

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Monsters Within & Without the Bunker: On "10 Cloverfield Lane," Which High-Fives "The Revenant," With a Nod to the Original "Cloverfield"

So I was amused by the original Cloverfield (2008), with its cool poster of the Statue of Liberty and tagline: Some Thing Has Found Us. It’s no great film or anything—kind of a Heineken ad spliced with (the film version … Continue reading

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They Eat Horses, Don't They? "The Revenant" v. "Backcountry": A Tale of Two Bears, With Nods to Peter Stark's "Astoria" and David Roberts's "A Newer World"

So I’ve been getting caught up on some of the Oscar-bait for this year, as in watching Matt Damon’s improbable space rescue in The Martian, and seeing The Revenant in a local theater, where I laughed and made too many … Continue reading

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On Tolstoy's "War and Peace" and J.J. Abrams's "Star Wars: The Force Awakens," Or a Journey from the Sublime to the Ridiculous

So over the holidays I was holed up on a mountainside in Colorado reading Leo Tolstoy’s epic War and Peace (1869), which, at 1224 pages, is an undertaking. I felt compelled to read it as quickly as possible, lest the … Continue reading

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Metro v. Retro Jon Krakauer: On the "Everest" Film and Jon Krakauer's "Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town"

So last weekend I happened to see the new film Everest, which recapitulates many of the events in Jon Krakauer’s bestseller Into Thin Air (1997), about the disastrous year when 11 climbers died on Mount Everest, circa 1996—which has since … Continue reading

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The Rise of Internet Fiction: Blending Reality and Fiction—Not Just Ghosts in the Machine

So when the internet first became accessible to a wide range of people, it wasn’t just corporations and commercial institutions that flooded the World Wide Web with their websites, advertising products and making their information publicly available. One of the … Continue reading

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On William Gay's "Little Sister Death": a Novel That Puts the P in Posthumous

So I should begin by the admission that I’m a diehard William Gay fan, and have been for years, ever since reading his first novel—The Long Home (1999), which was edited/published by none other than my own editor, Greg Michalson—though … Continue reading

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On Flying Rivers and Ghost Forests: A Visit to Mesa Verde

So I spent last weekend at Mesa Verde National Park—a bit west of Durango, Colorado, in the famous Four Corners region of the American Southwest—grokking with the spirits of our Native American ancestors, hiking through ancestral puebloan cliff dwellings, and … Continue reading

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Gunfire in the Aspens: the Realities of Cabin Life in the Rockies, With an Appreciative Nod to Walter Kirn in the New York Times

So I read today’s piece by Walter Kirn in the New York Times about cabin life and its status as an eddy of the American Dream (“Cabins, the New American Dream,” found here) with some amusement and recognition: I live … Continue reading

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