12 Comments

I'm about to recommend the book, once again, on a podcast about books being recorded on Tuesday. I have no idea when it will air. But I know the question is coming (it's the only thing I know about this podcast) and I am prepared for it.

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Thank you so much! I am excited to dig into The Reeds, which I just got myself hooked up with. I was moved to hear how you connected with Empty Lots, and deeply appreciate you sharing your experience of the book 🙏

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Well, I can’t add to what I’ve said. I mean, I could, but I would risk sounding like a sycophant. The episode of the podcast I recorded is scheduled for early April. I’ll send a link once it’s posted.

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One of your best. A cautionary post about the cryptids among us and their dangers in the year ahead.

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Thank you!

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PS the contest is on: Who will come up with the most brilliant appropriation of the image of that burning Cybertruck in front of Trump Hotel?

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Totally! It is its own meme.

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Great start to a Sunday, Chris. Pleased to add "immanent" to my commonplace book, which is bulging toward 600 pages now. Also happy to read your essay in LA Times. Recently, rereading the novels of Raymond Chandler (for the umpteenth time) I came across a reference to Ballona marsh, but I forgot which novel it was. That place, rimmed by a seemingly endless line of stationary homeless RVs (urban wagon train?) is strange but, as you say, maybe hopeful. I like viewing it with the signs denoting the route as an Earthquake Evacuation Route. Bummed to miss your appearance this afternoon (I've got a band rehearsal, a once in a year thing!} but I'm putting Jan. 17 at the supercool Livra Books on my calendar in ink. And now, I would like to share a poem titled "Fox" by one of my top 3 poets, Alice Oswald:

Fox

By Alice Oswald

I heard a cough

as if a thief was there

outside my sleep

a sharp intake of air

a fox in her fox-fur

stepping across

the grass in her black gloves

barked at my house

just so abrupt and odd

the way she went

hungrily asking

in the heart's thick accent

in such serious sleepless

trespass she came

a woman with a man's voice

but no name

as if to say: it's midnight

and my life

is laid beneath my children

like gold leaf

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Thanks, Jesse! Amazing poem, and I’ll have to find the Chandler that has Ballona marsh in it. I may be out there later this month.

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Wonderful read to start the new year!

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Thanks, Tom!

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Thanks for another interesting insight into North American wildlife and good luck with the UK launch of your book. There are alot of foxes where I live in South London and their mating cries are the most eerie sound I've ever heard. You might be interested in this article which reports on research into how urban living is affecting the brains of foxes: https://theecologist.org/2020/jun/03/evolution-urban-fox

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