Pocahontas County Fare

Is James Dickey's Deliverance an adventure story set in the land of the nine-fingered people, where musicians are wall-eyed albino idi...

I continue to pick at James Dickey's vitriolic and stereotypic descriptions of Appalachian people in Deliverance . Did Dickey mean for...

It's been a banner year for lilacs in Pocahontas County. All the bushes I've seen have been covered with blossoms, Even this old s...

I don't seem to be able to read one book and then put it down and move on. For some time, I've been trying to interpret James Dicke...

I mentioned Deliverance recently, in the context of entertainment suitable for discouraging unwanted tourism. I saw the movie when it fi...

We've been making a few late passes through the woods, looking for the yellow morels. They've been scattered, but we've found en...

Another mystery novel I read this week, under the guise of spring cleaning, was Anne Perry's A Sudden, Fearful Death . Like Ruth Rendel...

I was browsing my bookshelves Monday, looking for books to donate to my local library, when I came across The Bridesmaid , a book I'd b...

Earlier this week I watched a teen horror movie on satellite TV: Wrong Turn , released in 2003. I'd been watching for it since I first...

When I first noticed this stuff last spring on Williams River, I knew I ought to know what it was. I wish I had the recall to say "Wha...

I recently read Cathleen Shine's review, People Who Hurt People . She is writing about Joyce Carol Oates' new anthology, High Lones...

This is my third spring of trying to photograph and identify this handsome, small spring ephemeral. Last weekend gave me three sunny days f...

The spring beauty ( Claytonia virginica ) on Droop Mountain is bloomed out for this year, but at the headwaters of the Williams (about 800 ...

In an attempt to "Know My Spring Ephemerals," I've been spending some time with lenses, keys, and field guides this year. Th...

Last weekend, we returned to Williams River to dig ramps, cook them, play music, and camp with our friends from Greenbrier County. In the...

I'm afraid you'll have to bear with me as I become acquainted with my digital camera. Until this week, my blog photos were shot wit...

I've spent another week absorbed in technology. I've been researching why the sound acts strange on an old laptop, and upgrading my...

I've been spending too much time with computers for the last week, none of it involving blog entries. When I quit my genomics job back i...

Sherry Chandler's weblog is always worth reading. Lately, I've been enjoying her exploration of some early Kentucky writers. In the...

I recently re-read Joseph Conrad's Lord Jim , and chased it with Jeffrey Meyers' Joseph Conrad : A Biography . Meyers' biograph...