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The Central Valley’s Second Coming
First published May 27, 2015 at Beacon Reader. “The hundreds of miles of soil that surround the lives of Valley dwellers should not be confused with land. What was once land has become dirt, overworked...
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Napping in the belly of the king
This piece was first published August 27, 2015 at Beacon Reader. “They’re goddamn invasive plants.” Biologist Tim Shields had an odd look as he observed a mid-sized shrub in my yard in Joshua Tree,...
View ArticleCold solace
Science tells us that the fallen tree makes a sound. It doesn’t matter if we’re there. It doesn’t. The branches’ sudden arcuate course through whistled air, the sharp crack of limb against limb, the...
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A taxonomy of heartbreak
Not all hearts break at the end of a fist. Not all wounds bleed. Some hearts erode a bit at a time. Skin grows calluses with each insult. These hearts grow thin. These hearts weaken a bit with each...
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2017
Arthur D. Clarke and unspecified grandchild, 1960 My grandfather comes to me in pieces; The angle of a plywood sign nailed to a tree, my worn work boots on my porch in Richmond. I never call him up...
View ArticleWild Eyes at La Contenta
[I read this this weekend at Desert Stories X.] At 8:15 pm on May 18, 2016, the sky was darkening over Joshua Tree. I was driving across La Contenta Road heading eastbound on Route 62, doing about five...
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Do you suffer from Anthropocentric Personality Disorder?
Antisocial personality disorder is generally defined as a condition in which the sufferer exhibits a repeated pattern of disregard for the rights, feelings, and well-being of others. Tell me that isn’t...
View ArticleThe Desert is Not About You
A piece that appeared in issue number 2 of Luna Arcana, Joshua Tree’s local arts and culture print journal, published in June. There is a new gold rush in the Mojave Desert, a new ore being mined from...
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The Desert is Not Your Blank Canvas
First published April 19, 2015, at BeaconReader.com. When street artist André Saraiva got the notion to tag a parking lot boulder in Joshua Tree National Park, a few miles from where I live, he...
View ArticleStarlight
[Written for and performed as part of “Light,” a production of Thought Theatre in Pioneertown, CA that ran for three nights in December 2017.] The sun has been down for hours, though it’s only 8:00 pm....
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