The Kava Diary
“Oh,” she adds, almost as an afterthought, “Your mouth will start to tingle and go numb after a few sips. Don’t panic, that’s just a harmless side effect.”
The Cast Iron Cult
You identify them by
their burnt fingertips.
24K: A Birthday Challenge
I had plenty of time to think about suffering.
Earn Your Dawn
Comfort is a much needed salve, and respite for the parched and thirsty, but it’s good to remember we can also drown.
Sidewalk Buskers
We’re nodding our heads, ready to keep walking, and then he opens his mouth to sing.
Portuguesa (To My Wife)
Fifty seconds of the wind whipping, a few tires screeching, nothing more, nothing more needed. Two days of slipping up the coast, of stinging sand, of white adobe buildings.
On Ice Climbing and John Prine
Spend the next four years, and hopefully not eight, dear God hopefully not eight, fighting for those wild and important places.
The Best Jackets In Movie History: A Cinematic Retrospective
Can you imagine how ridiculous a whip and fedora would look paired with elbow patches? The jacket lays the foundation of the transformation.
Escape
When the state of the world overwhelms me, I turn to tried and trusted remedies.
The Wildness of God
God’s wildness is a multiplied version of the boot-quaking awe we experience when we gaze upon the Grand Canyon.
I Have a Problem
Hello, my name is Matt and I’m a gearaholic.
Lugares: The Long Awaited English Translation of a Portuguese Poetic Masterpiece
I’m proud to present my abridged and condensed translations of Maria Andresen de Sousa’s brilliant book Lugares.
Billy Collins’ Paradelle
In 1998, Billy Collins pulled off the greatest literary practical joke in the history of the English language: he invented the paradelle.
Writing Space
Perhaps the trick isn’t finding the perfect place, the perfect pen, the perfect aesthetic, the correct combination of elbow patches, pipe smoke, and whiskey. Perhaps the trick is simply to not have a trick.
Atlases Shrugged
The first time I read Travels With Charley I learned, with great delight, that Steinbeck freely admitted to being a terrible navigator.
Portraits from the Road I
It should be noted that the entirety of Shaw’s has gone sitcom quiet again. You get the feeling they’re waiting for their elder statesman to pass a type of judgment.
Shakespeare at the Y: The 7 Stages of Male Nudity
All the world’s a men’s YMCA locker room, / And all the men merely exercisers; / They have their exits and their entrances / And varied levels of clothing, / And one man in his time wears many towels.
The Book Thief
Sometimes I imagine my own literary cross section. If years from now my brain were to be halved, splinters of Steinbeck and jumbled letters of Lewis would tumble out.
To Catch A Train
I took a train every morning in Budapest to a little café called Budapest Bagel: a bar and a bagel shop where I somehow received college credit to write short stories and read novels following a longstanding expatriate tradition.
Weep for the World
Weep for the world. Weep for the broken hearted, the half hearted, the heartless and the two hearted murderers. Weep for liberty. Weep for fraternity. Weep for the encyclopedia of troubled souls.
Elements of a Good Meal
Food, I think, is more than a culinary experience. Memories of good meals carry the same aromatic nostalgia of campfire smoke and fondly remembered perfume.
Stella’s: The Monday Night Congregation
Fable, the pastor with early access to the communion wine, weaving, introduces guest speakers to deliver their personal sermons and stories of salvation.
The Importance of Being Bored
I have an operating theory that boredom proceeds greatness almost as often as the phrase “hold my beer.” I think in a culture of convenience we never challenge ourselves to wait.
The Backcountry Is Not a Wes Anderson Movie
What if that’s how wilderness ends? When we forget its inherent value and stop listening to its story, we attempt to master it in control of our own narrative.
