…that country where it is always turning late in the year. That country where the hills are fog and the rivers are mist; where noons go quickly, dusks and twilights linger, and mid-nights stay. That country composed in the main of cellars, sub-cellars, coal-bins, closets, attics, and pantries faced away from the sun. That country…

Dad never understood what I did for a living. Something to do with writing. Then he tried to buy a Harley-Davidson, since I was grown and he was having a midlife crisis. He could ride a bike and kill himself and everything would be fine. He got turned down with poor credit. Asked for my…

A love letter to libraries and aliens, for National Library Week.

What a find! I popped into my local public library branch just before closing and saw this album cover as the centerpiece of their Halloween display–a blast from my past, and for sale at $1! The album is a collection of sound effects from Disney–stock footage of wind, howling wolves, screaming cats, insane cackling, and…

Submitted for your approval, some examples of Rod Serling’s parting thoughts: “The Monsters are Due on Maple Street”: “ The tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs and explosions and fallout. There are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes, prejudices. To be found only in the minds of men. For the record, prejudices can…

Might as well get started with a great link: Coolest Homemade Costumes. All the best costumes involve some domestic engineering. Those box sets with chintzy character mask and vinyl poncho explaining what you’re supposed to be, since the costume doesn’t cut it? Early childhood FAIL.

Once I was at Disneyland and saw a group of Buddhist monks filing out of the Country Bear Kitchen restaurant, elderly men in salmon robes. Some children were playing tag in the crowd. One little boy, sprinting while looking backward at his friends, ran full-tilt into an old monk… …who rocked with the impact, caught…