montana
October 28, 2009
- I was born in LA county in 1960 and feel NO connection there. None. Even the ocean is changed. I do like the salt air smell and the eucalyptus trees. It is like being an adoptee who occasionally visits a biological parent who has both terminal cancer and Alzheimer's. You came from them originally, but there is no mutual recognition on any meaningful level and only sadness and alienation.
I ...
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October 11, 2009
- I have been teaching as a parttime adjunct at UM-Helena the last couple of years (drawing, painting, archaeology, sociology, environmental history/ethics). Just enough so I don't have to sign up for foodstamps, but still well below the poverty line. After three years of not being able to find a regular job, not even interviews, I have officially become a discouraged worker, and just try to find ...
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October 10, 2009
- These words are written and posted on the internet by the power of the sun. And the fact of it makes me think of Richie Havens and Montana. We have just installed solar panels on our roof here on the very edge of the edge of Tucson, up against the Santa Catalina Mountains in the Sonoran Desert. And I feel like singing of the smiles returning to our faces. It’s not the first time we’ve ...
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October 6, 2009
- I have a theory that the state of Montana is enormous for a reason. That its vastness is a test, each highway a reticulated part of a puzzle. You have to work hard to get there. Whether it’s 15 North, winding from the lunar hills of Monida Pass across to wind-scraped Great Falls, Interstate 90 from hip Bozeman to rimrocked Billings, or the hi-line from Cut Bank to Wolf Point, where ...
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June 16, 2009
- Just put up the fifth chapter of my Miner book here on Redroom. This chapter is all about the Unabomber, Ted, a character in my Miner book.I actually was doing historic preservation surveys during my tenure as an archaeologist for the Helena National Forest Service in the same mountains up near Lincoln, from 1991-1996, not far from where the Unabomber had his cabin. He had not been captured when ...
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June 3, 2009
- ShiftJennifer BradburyMay 2008AtheneumISBN: 978-1-4169-4732-5Retail: $16.99Jen and I spoke together on a panel at NCTE, and I got her book then. I've been meaning to read it ever since. I'm so glad I finally did. Shift is the story of two 18 year-old high school graduates, Win and Chris, who bicycle across America the summer before college starts. It's a journey of self discovery, a YA coming of ...
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May 25, 2009
- Senator Ransom Stoddard: You're not going to use the story, Mr. Scott? Reporter Maxwell Scott: No, sir. This is the West, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend. The lines were delivered in the 1962 film, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, in which John Ford directed John Wayne, Lee Marvin, and Jimmy Stewart. I saw the film over Memorial Day Weekend at the magnificently restored ...
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April 20, 2009
- More than 48 years ago, my Grandma Evelyn and Grandpa Mac were in China. They met in the Navy. Grandma was a nurse. Then, she gave up her career to marry him. Grandpa Mac was the Chief Warrant Officer. Back then, you had to be a “helluva’ seaman” to have that title. Today, a box arrived for me. Because it was insured, I put my all black Cockapoo puppy, Booker T. ...
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April 1, 2009
- There is a new collaborative fiction project called McKinley, Montana. It is a shared world set in a fictional county on the edge of the Rockies and the Plains being created under the guidance of Allan Tooley...all genres and forms are called for! Even art, photos, music, faux newspaper articles, ephemera. This is a great way to try something new and jumpstart an artist's block! Go ...
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March 7, 2009
- I posted another chapter from my unpublished book. Currently I am writing quite a bit. My focus is on working on my Ioway story, which I am struggling with. I could write it as straight narrative nonfiction or as magical realism. I kid you not. I made a new Montana writer friend online, by the name of Prairie Mary (aka Mary Scriver). She writes some good gritty Montana stuff, with a focus on ...
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