Awe-inspiring story from Diana Marcum at the Los Angeles Times. Here's a part of it: Two days later, on Aug. 17, flames exploded over a ridge above the Tuolumne River. Whitewater rafters navigating the canyon of buckeyes and bald eagles said it sounded like bombs. It was about 20 miles in the distance, but YosemiteContinue reading “How Yosemite fire crews saved the giant Sequoias”
Category Archives: local heroes
Seamus Heaney: The main thing is to write for the joy of it
The New York Times gives half its front page to Seamus Heaney on the occasion of his death, and deservedly so, but my favorite remembrance comes from Ojai's lost poet, Robert Peake, gone to London and good for him, and good for beginning the memory of a poet with, yes, one of his poems: ThenContinue reading “Seamus Heaney: The main thing is to write for the joy of it”
J.J. Cale (Gotta Get Back to You, Magnolia)
Last week the great J.J. Cale, beloved by talents ranging from Eric Clapton to Neil Young to Widespread Panic, left our realm. But he'll never be forgotten, for "Around Midnight" and "Cocaine" and many other great songs. As a thoughtful obit in the Daily Beast pointed out, J.J. Cale songs don't seem to have beenContinue reading “J.J. Cale (Gotta Get Back to You, Magnolia)”
Saving John Muir’s favorite tree: Maria La Ganga
Everyone has good days and bad days, but especially so he Los Angeles Times in recent years, which has been absolutely devastated by cutbacks, subscription falloffs, print declines, and local editions cut. The tale of at times seems endless. Yet good people at the paper have kept on doing good work. It's worth celebrating aContinue reading “Saving John Muir’s favorite tree: Maria La Ganga”
The Chumash cure for poison oak: USC Scientist
From my story in the Ojai Valley News: One of the most common shade plants in Southern California is mugwort, a rangy grey-green perennial with serrated leaves, which also turns out to be one of the plants most useful for healing in the Chumash tradition. That’s according to Jim Adams, a professor in pharmacology atContinue reading “The Chumash cure for poison oak: USC Scientist”
George Jones and the Replacements: two drama queens
This week George Jones, by consensus one of the greatest of country singers, passed away. Have to admire his ability to tell a story (as in the wonderfully rich Southern California, a duet with Tammy Wynette) but also his ability to make a story: …make no mistake, he could be menacing, a word that cameContinue reading “George Jones and the Replacements: two drama queens”
My heart knows what the wild goose knows: Roger Ebert
A personal fav from among his many entries to the New Yorker's caption contest: (Didn't win but doesn't matter. Roger Ebert lives on.)
The Sierra Club High Trips and why women liked them
In the High Trips, for about thirty years at the start of the 20th century, the Sierra Club as a mountaineering club peaked, surely. On those brilliantly organized journeys, as many as 200 people at time went into the High Sierras, having committed to a walk of a minimum of two hundred miles, over several weeks of hiking. Though theContinue reading “The Sierra Club High Trips and why women liked them”
Be true to your depression: James Hillman
The late great Jungian analyst James Hillman, on depression. Christian myth, the soul, and the path depression offers to those who experience it. From his compilation A Blue Fire: "Depression. Because Christ resurrects, moments of despair, darkening, and desertion cannot be valid in themselves. Our one model insists on light at the end of theContinue reading “Be true to your depression: James Hillman”
What Obama has in common w/JFK…and Kurt Cobain
In a recent interview with Franklin Foer of The New Republic, Barack Obama said he liked to shoot: FF: Have you ever fired a gun? BO: Yes, in fact, up at Camp David, we do skeet shooting all the time. FF: The whole family? BO: Not the girls, but oftentimes guests of mine go upContinue reading “What Obama has in common w/JFK…and Kurt Cobain”
Kit Stolz 