Tulip in red

From Andrey Bitkin; FujiFilmFinePix S5 Pro

A long trip home

Cessna 210

Toward the end of the trip to Miami Beach with my buddies, I called my dad. He told me that a friend of his was flying a private plane to Chicago from Ft. Lauderdale, and that I could hitch a ride. I asked if I could bring a friend along, and he said it would be fine. I told my crane-climbing pal Jim that he was welcome to fly back with me in a private plane. He jumped at the opportunity. It would be his first time up in a small aircraft.

We met the pilot, Roger, on the airport tarmac and soon buckled in, with me in the copilot seat and Jim in back. Roger taxied the Cessna 210 to the end of the runway, applied full throttle and in seconds we rose steeply into clear skies.

The plane leveled off at 7000 feet. The dark green everglades glistened below in the bright sunlight. Jim seemed content as he looked out the back window. 20 minutes later, Roger tilted the plane and pointed to the left to get a better look at lake Okeechobee. "Fresh water alligators," he said above the loud din of the engine. I nodded, happy to be high above the spiny reptiles.

From a mile and a half above the ground, the country is mostly made up of green and brown rectangular plots of land. Occasionally, large cities and small towns pop up, then more rectangular plots for many miles.

An hour north of Lake Okeechobee, I noticed Roger checking control panel instruments. "I think we have a slight skip in the engine," he calmly said, adding "I just felt in the seat of my pants." Sure enough, a minute or two later I felt a slight vibration under me.

"Don't worry, I could land this plane in the middle of the mountains and we'd all walk away from it," Roger said. I looked back at Jim. He remained silent but looked like he had just seen a ghost.

My leather seat vibrated again, a little stronger than the last time. The propeller seemed to be functioning fine and there was no telltale skipping sound. The brief vibration repeated about every ten to twenty minutes. Roger told us we'd be landing in Macon Georgia to evaluate the situation. A half our later, we descended through light clouds and softly touched down. I was happy to be on the ground and Jim seemed very relieved.

Roger called my dad and they concurred that the engine problem didn't seem too serious. We would proceed to Chicago. I was a bit surprised, but went along with the plan. After all, how else were Jim and I going to get home that evening?

We ambled back into the plane and took off for the three-hour trip to Chicago. For the first hour the vibration seemed to have disappeared. A half hour later it was back, this time with a bit more intensity. Roger did not seem overly concerned. I was worried, but thanks to Roger's attitude, not scared out of my pants. We were now over central Indiana, and the sun had just set over the horizon.

Then it happened--so fast there was no time to soil my pants. The engine took a major skip, almost losing power. Roger reacted immediately, nosing the plane down to avoid stalling and adjusting the throttle. The engine kicked back in and we leveled off.

"That's it," Roger declared. "We'll land in Terra Haute. I'm not going to fly this thing at night." He guided it down for another perfect landing. We were all relieved to be on terra firma in Terra Haute, the dirt-track racing capital of the world. We boarded a commercial turboprop for the final two hundred miles to Chicago; a nice large plane--with two engines.

Sometimes in a dream, you appear

Earth with dark soot particles

The Dark Side of Carbon

As interest in Earth's changing climate heats up, a tiny dark particle is stepping into the limelight: black carbon. Commonly known as soot, black carbon enters the air when fossil fuels and biofuels, such as coal, wood, and diesel are burned. Black carbon is found worldwide, but its presence and impact are particularly strong in Asia. Black carbon, a short-lived particle, is in perpetual motion across the globe. The Tibetan Plateau's high levels of black carbon likely impact the region's temperature, clouds and monsoon season. Image Credit: NASA

12/15/2009 23:00:00

12 great under-recognized novels

Mr. Samler's Planet Saul Bellow

If On a Winter's Night a Traveler Italo Calvino

Geek Love Katherine Dunn

Never Let Me Go Kazuo Ishiguro

The Trial Franz Kafka

Blind Date Jerzy Kosinski

The Book of Laughter Milan Kundera
and Forgetting

Love in the Time of Cholera Gabriel Marquez

Kafka on the Shore Haruki Murakami

Laughter in the Dark Vladamir Nabokov

The Violent Bear it Away Flannery O'Connor

The Secret History Donna Tartt

Chekov in Tombstone

Green fern and tree

December 24, 2007; Armstrong Redwoods, California

From Andrey Bitkin, Chicago, Illinois. FujiFilm, FinePix, S5 Pro.

Create Star Trek animations

Ghost train

In a tight spot

On the porch of the saloon in Black Diamond Hills (Second Life)

Green trees, call to me

He climbed that too

StevieG, 16, Pyramid of the Sun, Teotihuacan Mexico

The climb

At the age of 16, I took a spring break vacation to Miami Beach Florida with three high school buddies, Jim, Irwin and Barry. We split the bill at a cheap motel on the inner coastal waterway. By day, we hung out at hotel pools along Collins Avenue, and chased girls. At night, we hung out at Big Daddy's Lounge listening to Barry White music, and chased girls. No one bothered to card us, so we drank a few beers.

One afternoon, Jim and I stopped at a construction site next to the Singapore Hotel. A large crane stood dormant and there were no workers around. The steel ball at the top of the crane was level with the 11th story of the Singapore, about 110 feet high. I can't remember who first came up with the idea. We decided to climb the crane that night.

At about 9 PM that evening, we donned our Converse basketball shoes (for a tight grip) and headed for the site. At the bottom of the crane, we looked up, and then at each other, a little nervous. Sure it was dangerous, but the adventure far outweighed the danger or the risk of getting caught.

Like most standard cranes, the bars of the superstructure crossed in an X with a supporting bottom bar, all the way up. After a test climb of 10 feet, we came down and decided that it was no problem. We started to climb. 30 feet up, we paused to rest and look around.

At about 70 feet, we rested again and took in the sights. The warm fragrant wind blew in our faces as we tried to contain our excitement. We had done alot of crazy things in high school, but nothing could quite match this. We pressed on. At 90 feet, the ball at the top was clearly in sight.

Ten minutes later, we reached the top, touched the steel ball and settled into sitting positions. Small points of light dotted the ocean horizon. Collins Avenue traffic stretched north and south for miles as people walked a short distance from the unlit construction site.

We started down twenty minutes later. Methodically, in no rush, we negotiated every steel bar perfectly in a rhythm that kept us together on opposite sides of the superstructure. Pausing again at about the same levels as on the way up, I half-expected the police to be waiting for us at the bottom.

The coast was clear. We scurried down the final 10 feet and hopped off the crane laughing our hearts out. We did it!

Over the years, I have told very few people about the experience. I save it mostly for myself during those times when I need to call on a reserve of pride and strength. A while back, I read somewhere that people rarely look up as they go about their daily business. So true--so true.

Cold hand of justice

Night Hanging, Virtual Tombstone Arizona in Second Life

I'll be your Huckleberry

Trouble in Tombstone Arizona

Three top-level Tombstone public officials are under investigation by the Cochise County Attorney's Office as to whether they have violated Arizona's open meeting laws. Those implicated in the investigation include Mayor Dusty Escapule, City Attorney Randy Bays and City Clerk Brenda Ikirt.

Cochise County Attorney Edward Rheinheimer launched the investigation after receiving a You Tube video (above) from a Sierra Vista Herald journalist, of an Oct. 13 Tombstone City Council meeting. At that time, city officials booted Mike Carrafa, owner of Six Gun City, from the meeting for making “personal attacks” against the mayor and council.

The County Attorney’s Office reviewed the tape and decided to initiate the investigation. Rheinheimer told a reporter that he was disturbed by the way Carrafa was prevented from addressing the council by the city attorney and the mayor in what would seem to have been a completely appropriate manner.

Reprinted from Jeff Hidalgo's November 5, 2009 Tombstone Epitaph article Top Town Officials Under Investigation

Hit link for full article.

Montage

Utanosuke Playing Go

Print 10-6, Kiseido Publishing; Tokyo, Japan

Oban print by Kunisada (signing as Toyokuni III), published by Tsutaya Kichizo in 1861. From the series Meigi Sanju-rokkasen (A Selection of Thirty-Six Famous Geisha). The haiku in the panel reads:

With the first move at go

the heat of this evening

is quite forgotten.

Just One Kiss

Stuck in Blue

Raiko and the Ground Spider

(See if this story matches with Go World cover depicting the apparation of the ground spider. If so. List the issue Season and No., and Link Kiseido)

Raiko, more formally known as Minamoto no Yorimitsu (948-1021), was a warrior of noble birth around whom gathered many legends celebrating his exploits in ridding the country of a variety of robbers, demons and ogres. One of these demons was known as Tsuchigumo, or The Ground Spider.

Folklorists think the name may denote a real person, possibly a brigand or highwayman who made his headquarters in a cave. In the stories, however, Tsuchigumo is a monstrous arachnid, notorious for luring travelers into the subterranean cavern where he dwells and dining on their blood.

Two of these legends contributed ideas to the theater, and from the theater to woodblock prints connected with go. In one of these legends Raiko and his lieutenant Watanabe no Tsuna are out on the moors investigating the strange apparition of a huge skull in the sky. They come to the hut of Yamamba, a man-eating hag. With her lives a boy known as Kaidomaru, brought up among animals and endowed with superhuman strength (his childhood is the subject of an independent cycle of legends). At the boy's own request Raiko receives him as a retainer and bestows on him the name of Kintoki.

Continuing their search, the small band enters a cavern beneath the hut. They make their way past a threatening host of goblins and at length encounter a mysterious woman of baleful beauty. As Raiko studies her he feels himself becoming enmeshed in a net of cobwebs and realizes that he is being bewitched. He cuts through the net with his sword, wounding the woman. She vanishes, for she was nothing more than an emanation sent out by the spider demon himself. They follow a trail of ichor deeper into the cavern, and at the end they find the horrible Ground Spider, which Raiko kills after a violent battle.

In the other legend, Raiko is suffering from a mysterious debilitating ailment and is sleeping in his own mansion. He is guarded by Watanabe no Tsuna, two other retainers named Urabe no Suetake and Usui Sadamitsu, and by the former Kaidomaru, who is now dignified with the name Sakata no Kintoki and who is always shown in prints (and on the stage) as a burly and choleric warrior with a red face. (These four together were popularly known, in an allusion to Buddhist mythology, as The Four Guardian Kings.)

Two of them pass the time by playing go. A goblin appears, sent by the King of Demons (apparently one of Tsuchigumo's titles) to take advantage of Raiko's weakness and kill him. This creature is usually depicted in prints as having three eyes and a long tongue. In the most famous treatment of the subject, Kuniyoshi's great triptych published around 1843 (see Print 6-4), a whole troop of spooks takes shape as if out of a nightmare. Raiko wakes in the nick of time, however, and cuts off the principal demon's leg (see left panel of Print 6-12), whereupon they all vanish. Again Watanabe and his companions follow a trail of blood deep into a cave where they find a huge spider, Tsuchigumo himself. They manage to kill it, and Raiko quickly recovers.

The classic Noh play Tsuchigumo, based on these legends, is divided into two scenes. In the first, the spider, disguised as a sympathetic monk, visits the ailing Raiko. When it begins to spin a web Raiko realizes its true nature and slashes the creature with his sword, whereupon it vanishes. In the second scene, his retainers follow the trail to the spider's cave and destroy it.

This play was adapted as a dance drama for the kabuki stage by the great playwright Kawatake Mokuami in 1881, under the same title, and this is the version familiar to most theatergoers today. A popular moment in the staging of both the Noh drama and the kabuki play occurs when the disguised Tsuchigumo flings out long coils of paper that unravel all over the stage, very dramatically entrapping everyone in a tangled web.

Earlier plays that made use of the spider-as-beautiful-woman theme include the dance-drama Waga Seko no Koi no Aizuchi (Responding to the Siren's Call), by Sakurada Jisuke, staged at the Nakamura Theater in Edo in 1781, and a history play, Yama Mata Yama Oyozume-Banashi (The Tale of a Noble Guardman), by Segawa Joko II, staged at the Tamagawa Theater in Edo in 1818 (see Print 6-1).

Apparition of the Spider Princess

Print 6-11, Kiseido Publishing; Tokyo Japan

Oban diptych by Yoshitoshi Tsukioka, published by Kobayashi Tetsujiro in1886.

Sakata no Kintoki, one of Raiko's retainers, has been dozing with his head on the go board. He suspiciously opens his eyes as a seductive woman -- actually an apparition created by the Ground Spider -- glides by on her errand of mischief. An unusual conception showing Yoshitoshi's fresh approach to traditional themes.

Text 100 in the Virtual World

All in green went my love riding

by e.e. cummings (original source, 8 of 13 stanzas)

All in green went my love riding
on a great horse of gold
into the silver dawn.

four lean hounds crouched low and smiling
the merry deer ran before.

Fleeter be they than dappled dreams
the swift sweet deer
the red rare deer.

Horn at hip went my love riding
riding the echo down
into the silver dawn.

four lean hounds crouched low and smiling
the level meadows ran before.

Softer be they than slippered sleep
the lean lithe deer
the fleet flown deer.

Four fleet does at a gold valley
the famished arrows sang before.

Bow at belt went my love riding
riding the mountain down into the silver dawn.

In a book

As from the house your mother sees
You playing round the garden trees,
So you may see, if you will look
Through the windows of this book,
Another child, far, far away,
And in another garden, play.
But do not think you can at all,
By knocking on the window, call
That child to hear you. He intent
Is all on his play-business bent.
He does not hear, he will not look,
Nor yet be lured out of this book.
For, long ago, the truth to say,
He has grown up and gone away,
And it is but a child of air
That lingers in the garden there.

Robert Louis Stevenson

Virtual Reality

Crystal Palace saloon fire

StevieG (wearin suspenders) keepin his distance from the conflagration in virtual Tombstone Arizona, Second Life.

The candyman

He drops candy to Wisconsin Amish children from his plane.

From the collection of David Lade, Chicago IL

"Ben Hur"

Artist: Ed Paschke

Medium: Silkscreen

Stuck in Why

We left Tucson that morning feeling good about our trip to the Sea of Cortez in the upper most reaches of the Baja Peninsula. Our destination that day—Puerto Penasco--a sleepy Mexican seaport with a long stretch of white beach and interesting local beer joints.

Heading west along I-10, the desert stretched to the horizon on all sides. Occasionally, tin shacks of the Papago Indian Reservation dotted the side of the highway.

I had made this trip several times before, though never in a beater Chevy. Sure enough, three hours out of Tucson, the engine’s temperature gauge inched upward. 15 minutes later, a loud knocking in the engine; the car heaved like a wounded whale.

We pulled over, and flagged down a passing motorist. The man said he would notify a tower in Ajo to come pick us up. An hour later, Fred Nixon of Fred Nixon towing agency hooked the Chevy onto his truck and we were on our way. We had a look at the Map. The highway diverged in twenty miles at Why Arizona. “Just drop us off in Why. You can have the car,” Phil said. The dust from Fred’s truck lingered in the air a long time as he hightailed it out of Why, which was not exactly a town but rather a crossroads with one general store and gas station.

Dust devils formed a hundred yards out in the desert. Roadrunners skittered around near us as we stood under the sign “270 miles to Tucson.” We stuck out our thumbs at passing motorists. Having no luck, we approached an RV in the General Store parking lot and got the attention of the driver. “Hi there,” Phil said in the most pleasant voice he could muster. “We’re trying to get back to Tucson.”

The driver gave us a cold hard stare and said in a southern drawl, “Well, I don’t right like hitchhikers.” We explained that we're not really hitchhikers, but that our car had broke down. He had a few words with his wife, decided that we were ok, and told us to hop in. His Doberman Pincher kept us company in the back of the RV all the way back to Tucson.

The color of night

Cranial discomfort

I've had this damn headache ever since we warped out of Talos 4. Three Bayer did nothing. Waited 6 hours after that on Bones instructions, then popped two Tylenol. Took a nap and had weird dreams. Woke up with pain in my temples. Now what? Advil, Ibuprofin, green tea with honey?

Sea surface full of clouds (first stanza)

by Wallace Stevens

In that November off Tehuantepec,
The slopping of the sea grew still one night
And in the morning summer hued the deck

And made one think of rosy chocolate
And gilt umbrellas. Paradisal green
Gave suavity to the perplexed machine

Of ocean, which like limpid water lay.
Who, then, in that ambrosial latitude
Out of the light evolved the morning blooms,

Who, then, evolved the sea-blooms from the clouds
Diffusing balm in that Pacific calm?
C’était mon enfant, mon bijou, mon âme.

The sea-clouds whitened far below the calm
And moved, as blooms move, in the swimming green
And in its watery radiance, while the hue

Of heaven in an antique reflection rolled
Round those flotillas. And sometimes the sea
Poured brilliant iris on the glistening blue.

The raid

One evening many years ago, I was playing Go at the Korean Club on Lawrence Avenue. I left the club early that night to go home and watch a White Sox game. The next day, I counted myself a lucky fellow upon hearing that the club was raided by the Chicago police. They hauled away 13 Koreans in a paddy wagon on gambling charges. With no windows to the street, I wondered how the police could make such a claim. Later, it came out that undercover officers had been spying on the gamers through a narrow crank window in the alley.

Go is a game of skill; it involves no luck. Technically, gambling requires an element of luck. In essence, a few dollars wagered on Go is akin to a few dollars bet at a bowling alley. The wife of a physicist, a well known Chicago mystery writer, informed Mike Royko of the incident. He wrote a column questioning why the Chicago cops spent so much time hunting gaming geeks while gangs and thugs ravished nearby neighborhoods. Eventually charges were dropped and the club resumed its gaming activities.

Later, it came to light that a Go widow (the wife of a player who stays out all night playing Go) informed on the club in order to get her husband back.

Artist and artist

Author Ames and illustrator Haspiel discuss the fine points of graphic novel collaboration.

From the collection of David Lade, Chicago IL

"Toy Soldier"

Artist: Martin Soto

Medium: Oil on canvas

Oooooh Baby Baby

UFO hunting in Tucson

The woman who published a small libertarian newspaper asked me, “Do you want to come UFO hunting with us tonight?” This would be a first for me, so I gamely accepted her invitation.

With my Pentax and tripod in tow, we picked up the others, bought a case of beer, and headed twenty miles NW of Tucson to a spot near the former Titan missile silo complex.

I quickly learned the art of UFO hunting. Drink some beer, erect tripod and camera, open up the aperture all the way, set on time exposure, and wait.......and wait.........and wait. Bats darted about, picking off small insects with the efficiency of a Hoover. There was a little conversation among us, but not so much as to ruin the effect of our mission--to locate and photograph aliens.

On the way to the location, the woman told me that her boyfriend was a hybrid, half human and half alien. She referred to him as a Visitor. I was happy she left him at home that night, and didn't bother to ask which parent was the alien, though I hoped it was the father.

I downed my fourth beer quickly, and looked to the Southwest. A blinking light above the horizon caught my eye. I alerted the others to it. It must be a plane, I thought, but it wasn't very high in the sky and the light was too irregular for a beacon. I stared hard and got behind my camera's 300 mm telephoto lens. A thin dark outline broke the arc of the sky 20 degrees behind the light. It was the edge of a mountain range, and the blinking light was a car traversing a tree-lined mountain road.

The aliens were probably two college students looking for a secluded spot.

Tombstone Arizona is InWorld and out of this world

Tombstone AZ in Second Life. StevieG in foreground wearing suspenders

During my college days, I wrote news and feature articles for the local edition of the Tombstone Epitaph. The newspaper made the University of Arizona Journalism department one of the best in the country--we wrote and designed a paper for a real town with permanent residents. And Tombstone's storied history provided added cache that drew visitors from all over the world.

Dinosaur bones, nearby ghost towns, local beauty pageants, and contemporary town power brokers provided a wide palette for reporters. Today you can follow the goings-on in Tombstone at the online version of the Epitaph, still published by the U of A Journalism department.

Inspired by Casey Olbermann's Epitaph article (Culture Section), "Many travel to Tombstone's virtual world," I recently went through the preliminaries (see above graphic) to enter the virtual world of Tombstone Arizona on Second Life. I will post my experiences there from time to time. SG

In search of the best pork in outer space

"Curious that the captain would not accept my reasoning for going beyond Sigma Draconis 6 for pork bellies. When it comes to the searing effect of radiation on porcine specimens, an outer planet of a red giant star system is far inferior to an inner world of a white dwarf sun." SG

Go story and poem

Graphic art from Go World magazine, No. 81

Chinese legends abound of people who had chance meetings in the mountains with immortals. The legend of Wang Chih, a woodcutter, has survived the ages.

From Go World magazine, No. 69, Kiseido Pubishing

Wang Chih was a hardy young fellow who used to venture deep into the mountains to find suitable wood for his axe. One day he went farther than usual and became lost. He wandered for a while and eventually came upon two strange old men who were playing go, their board resting on a rock between them. Wang Chih was fascinated. He put down his axe and began to watch. One of the players gave him something like a date to chew on, so that he felt neither hunger nor thirst. As he continued to watch he fell into a sort of trance for what seemed like an hour or two. When he awoke, however, the two old men were no longer there. He found that his axe handle had rotted to dust and he had grown a long beard. When he got back to his native village he discovered that his family had disappeared and that no one even remembered his name.

Inspired by the legend, Ki no Tomonori, a Japanese poet and court official, returned to his home capital from a distant land circa A.D. 900 and wrote:

I've come back home/
There is no friend to play go with/
That place far away/
where an axe handle turned to dust--/
how dear to me it has become!

Dim relieve

“Quite accidentally, I found a limitless source of inspiring imagery and infinite expression: women. When I was a little girl, I used to watch my grandmother who was a fashion designer, work with women. She was a visionary; a very talented lady. Sadly, because of many circumstances during those times – most notably the war and communism in the Czech Republic – she never fulfilled her dream. I knew from a very young age, I would become an artist to make my grandmother’s dreams and mine, a reality. Through my work, I aspire to bring our visions, feelings, thoughts and inspirations to life. It is so rewarding for me to be able to share my emotions and energy with you. Thank you for reading and exploring with me.”

--Misa Verbeek

Far from you

Misa Verbeek has a current exhibit at Cafeneo in Lincoln Square, Chicago IL

He just couldn't help it

Go tournament

StevieG and gloved opponent with interested Korean onlooker

On Being Blue

Author: William Gass
A Nonpareil Book published in 1991 by David R. Godine, Publisher
Copyright 1976 by William Gass
First published by Godine in 1976

First paragraph excerpted by permission of the publisher

“Blue pencils, blue noses, blue movies, laws, blue legs and stockings, the language of birds, bees and flowers as sung by longshoremen, that lead-like look the skin has when affected by cold, contusion, sickness, fear; the rotten rum or gin they call blue ruin and the blue devils of its delirium; Russian cats and oysters, a withheld or imprisoned breath, the blue they say that diamonds have, deep holes in the ocean and the blazers which English athletes earn that gentlemen may wear; afflictions of the spirit—dumps, mopes, Mondays—all that’s dismal—lowdown gloomy music, Nova Scotians, cyanosis, hair rinse, bluing, bleach; the rare blue dahlia like that blue moon shrewd things happen only once in, or the call for trumps in whist (but who remembers whist or what the death of unplayed games is like?), and correspondingly the flag, Blue Peter, which is our signal for getting under way; a swift pitch, Confederate money, the shaded slopes of clouds and mountains, and so the constantly increasing absentness of Heaven (ins Blaue hinein, the Germans say), consequently the color of everything that’s empty: blue bottles, bank accounts, and compliments, for instance, or, when the sky’s turned turtle, the blue-green bleat of ocean (both the same), and, when in Hell, its neatly landscaped rows of concrete huts and gas-blue flames; social registers, examination booklets, blue bloods, balls, and bonnets, beards, coats, collars, chips, and cheese. . . the pedantic, indecent and censorious. . . watered twilight, sour sea: through a scrambling of accidents, blue has become their color, just as it’s stood for fidelity. Blue laws took their hue from the paper they were printed on. Blue noses were named for a potato. E. Haldeman-Julius’ little library, where I first read Ellen Key’s Evolution of Love, vainly hoping for a cock stand, had such covers. In the same series, which sold for a dime in those days, were the love letters of that Portuguese nun, Mariana Alcoforado, an overwrought and burdensome lady, certainly, whose existence I callously forgot until I read of her again in Rilke.”

With prose and poetry scaling the heights in deep meditation, William Gass brings meaning and shades of meaning that light a low fire under indigo, cobalt and aquamarine; around every aspect beneath and above the sky.

Arizona ghost town

“So where did ya come in from,?” Dan asks.

I told him I had come from Tucson by way of Tombstone, and he kidded that I was a city slicker. I didn't bother telling him about my home town Chicago. Tuffy reached for a lighter inside his jacket to strike up a camel dangling from his lip. He sat still, silent, with a wry smile.

I asked Dan about the photograph inside the bar of two dead animals dangling from a pole. He nodded toward Tuffy.

“Proudest day of my life,” Tuffy said. “Bagged a mountain lion and a deer on the same hunt.”

I sat there for an hour with the two gentleman, asking questions about the area, its history, and other people that lived there. Besides our conversation, the only sound you could hear were leaves rustling in the wind. When it died down, total silence.

Gleeson had once been a bustling mining town in the 1800s, with a population over 5000. A steady decline set in after the copper ore was depleted in the 50’s. Dan’s mother had taught school in the one room schoolhouse. Dan stayed on at the family ranch to raise cattle. Gleeson now has a population of 12, which swells by a few if anyone is staying in the trailer park.

I thanked Dan and Tuffy for their time, told them I had all I needed to write my article, and was on my way. They told me to come visit again. The 70 miles back to Tucson was filled with thoughts of a most extraordinary experience, one I knew I would always remember. And I have.

Taking the proper precaution

Trompe l'oeil master Julian Beever has them walking in circles to avoid the quicksand.

These people were not so lucky

All you have to do is look at me, to know that every word is true

A game for the ages

The strategic board game Go challenges players, more than any other game of strategy, to use both sides of the brain. Simple rules soon encounter complex situations as spherical pieces of equal value form groups of variable strength. A player's skill in managing weaknesses will, in most cases, decide the eventual winner. To become skillful, a player develops both abstract and logical thinking capacity, and the talent to adjust each like nobs governing a faucet.

In ancient China, two opposing generals about to do battle first met in the middle of a field. After a short discussion, instead of fighting the battle and suffering many deaths among their soldiers, they decided to play a Go game between themselves to decide the victor. But this is not a game just for men. Many women enjoy the game and often beat their male opponents.

For decades, Japan has been the world leader in promoting the game. In Japan, it is called Igo; in China it is known as Weichi, and in Korea, Baduk. It is all the same game, played by young and old.

For information about Go, instructional books and magazines, Go equipment, and online game server access, visit Kiseido Publishing.

The Enterprise crew watching the talent portion of an intergalactic beauty pageant broadcast

Scotty
Check out the legs on that Romulan!

Dr. McKoy
Quiet Scotty! I’m concentrating.

Chekov
How many tribbles did the Klingon juggle?

Nurse Chapel
Hell if I know. I kinda liked the girl who did an upside down Rigelian folkdance…….but, you know, none of them are really all that attractive.

Captain Kirk
Bones, please check Nurse Chapel’s pulse.

Lieutenant Uhura
What am I doing here with these nutcases?

Spock
A logical, yet unanswerable, questioning of one’s place in time and space lieutenant. Hmmmm, I thought the young lady from Talos 4 was most impressive with her response to “What is the distance of a parsec in nautical miles?” Off by only two million light years.

Sulu
I'm missing "Apollo 13" for this.

A sublime story rendered in high art prose that will forever impact perceptions of love and friendship

Art students at a private boarding school in the countryside of England struggle to overcome a dark aspect of their lives. Kazuo Ishiguro (Remains of the Day) delves deep to reveal these extraordinary students' desire for normalcy while facing an ominous future with courage. A rare novel that shows, rather than explains, the gift of intimacy and the eventuality of letting go.

Live Long and Prosper