Before Holy Mountain

Originally published as a Facebook Note July 15, 2014. It was my last-but-one Facebook Note, the last being my 2016 All-Star votes. City Lights Bookstore, San Francisco CA I had odd feelings about this vacation. I brought my own anxieties along, to which were added the inevitable uncertainties of traveling, long periods in the car on difficult roads, and then news that our home had sustained some storm damage. It seemed like every time I started to relax and enjoy myself this giant foot of anxiety would stomp me back to reality. Nevertheless, thanks to Jane's astute planning we were able to see a healthy swath of the Golden State in a relatively short time. Friday, June 27 Staying at: Days Inn, Fountain Valley CA Coffee: Brewed Awakenings, Cedar Rapids, before our plane left Dinner: grilled chicken at the Proodians', Huntington Beach CA "This is L.A.": California's impact on pop music is obvious once you start traveling around and realize every place reminds y...

Originally published as a Facebook Note July 11, 2012. I did nothing with this idea, but maybe I should have? Maybe I still can? I did get a lot of great suggestions in the comments. I'm tagging librarians and English teachers on this, but anyone can answer: What are the best/most notable/your favorite uses of place in fiction? Discursive explanation follows: For a few years, I've taught an interdisciplinary course in Coe's first-year seminar program called "A Sense of Place," largely as a free-associating bundle o' chaos careening wildly among various subjects having some loose element of place in them. Before I teach it again, I would like to achieve two things that seem to me contradictory. ("Do I contradict myself? Very well then...") The first is to clarify the core elements of the geographic concept of place, in order to inform whatever we discuss. The second is to study the many ways in which place informs fields outside of geography. Once I...

  Originally published as a Facebook Note July 16, 2010. (photo by Robbie) July is Travel Month in the Nesmith household, this year featuring a swing to the Mid-Atlantic states followed by a quick trip to Chicago. Details follow, but in order that the detail not become numbing I have limited the information to some essentials--(1) Where did we go, and how far did we travel? (2) Did I get coffee? (3) What was for dinner?--as well as one highlight for each day. The coffee theme winds up less than perky, if you'll pardon the pun (which I don't mind if you don't, as the phrase is there only to ensure you'll notice). Maybe in some future trip we can be sure to save an hour in the day to spend at a wonderful coffeehouse, instead of grabbing some for the road as turned out to be the case except for Corning. Without further ado, the short of it, without the long: Monday, July 5. To: Cleveland Heights OH (582 miles) Staying With: Bill and Kim Claspy Coffee: (1) BP,...