A musical afternoon with the band Laila Belle in Hector

TWO GOATS BREWERY, Hector, NY - With the wind howling a steady 25 knots and a slight bite of cold air with it, taking refuge at Two Goats seemed like a great idea Sunday afternoon.

Plus, the up-and-coming Trumansburg, NY band Laila Belle was on stage at Two Goats for a three-hour gig.

Laila Belle band

I've followed this group since they cut their premier CD and today got to meet lead singer Amy Puryear. And even though they have been very active in the area I haven't made it to a single performance.

Until today.

The music was toe-tapping great. And Amy's voice rang true even over the sound of the chatter in the crowded saloon, filled with people enjoying the soft sounds of Laila Belle's country music.

I may have to start following Amy and her band around, the same way I like to keep tabs on Scott Adams and Brett Beardslee as they make their musical rounds. Always a good time wherever those guys are playing.

And now it seems like Laila Belle, too.

Here's a short video same of what the appreciative crowd at Two Goats heard today.

Popping up on the energy industry's political radar

POINT RICHMOND, Calif. - Since publishing The Fracking War in 2014, followed by Fracking Justice last year, I wondered how long it would take the energy industry to discover that there were a couple of novels out there that take a very dim view of their activities.

Then this morning's email (and Twitter feed) came with a notice that an outfit called Energy In Depth is now following me on Twitter.

They found me!!!

If Energy In Depth sounds familiar, it should. This national natural gas industry-funded website has been putting out propaganda for years, most of it not only purposefully misleading, but downright nasty in a personal way. It's associated with Marcellus Drilling News, another industry-based web publication. MDN goes off the deep end - rhetorically speaking - on a daily basis. (Here's a sentence from today's MND: "The EPA is a lawless organization, out of control and drunk on its own power."

At first, I was puzzled by by EID's sudden interest in following me on Twitter. Then I remembered I had a lengthy email back-and-forth with the editor of the Marcellus Drilling News (Jim Willis) over a piece he published.

In that piece he said this:

"Everything in fracking fluid is stuff you find under your kitchen sink 

or in your bathroom medicine cabinet."

Really?

I emailed him back, pointing out that I didn't have benzene or toulene under my sink (or in any medicine chests) and that led to an exchange that ended with these two emails:

Marcellus Drilling News:

"Look, I know you're a radical anti-driller. 

Why do you subscribe when you disagree with what I write? 

Feel free to unsubscribe at any time. 

 I'm not interested in promoting your fictional book. - JIM"

Michael Fitzgerald:

"I disagree with the label radical anti-driller, Jim. I just want drilling done safely. 

And statements like you made about frack fluid ingredients all being found 

underneath a kitchen sink - or in a medicine chest? 

Come on. If that was really true, there would not be so much secrecy. 

 And the Halliburton loophole, would not be necessary. 

Keep pumping those stories out there pardner."

Why did I encourage him to keep pumping out his sometimes off-the-wall stories? Well, it's great fodder for future novels... Great stuff!

And for the record, I don't subscribe. I get a free daily feed of his "stories."

'Ninteen Minutes', a novel by Jodi Picoult that's full of surprises

POINT RICHMOND, Calif. - Somehow Jodi Picoult's 2007 novel, Nineteen Minutes slipped past my reading radar.

I honestly don't know how that happened. Ms. Picoult's books are usually in my hands shortly after they are released.

But this book fairly jumped off the shelf into my hands at the Point Richmond Public Library a few rainy days ago.

Yes, it's been raining here in the San Francisco Bay Area. Really!

In Nineteen Minutes, there's not much weather to speak of. But there is a hail of bullets at a high school (nearly 200 rounds), dead and injured students, enough bullying to give almost anyone nightmares, and a thriller/mystery plot told in flashbacks and flash forwards.

When you read Nineteen Minutes, "flashbacks and flash forwards" will make a lot more sense.

Jodi Picoult

Like all of Jodi Picoult's novels the research that went into it shows on nearly every page. She captures the essence of teenage life in American high schools, the angst of teens and parents alike, the flaws in the judicial system and the way-too cavalier manner in which we deal with bullies.

If you were seriously bullied as a child, this book may be disturbing. On the other hand, it will also be compelling.

Nineteen Minutes is absolutely recommended reading. And if your library doesn't have it, you can get it through Amazon quite quickly.

'M Train' by Patti Smith takes you on a ride

POINT RICHMOND, Calif. - National Book Award winner Patti Smith takes readers on a journey around the globe in her 2015 book, M Train.

Written in a series of vignettes and remembrances, M Train walks the reader through Smith's life in New York, trips to Spain, Japan and elsewhere.

And through it all, Smith is either gulping coffee - or looking for a cup, somewhere. Anywhere.

Patti Smith's talents as a writer, performer and visual artist span decades. And in M Train, she moves around in time, using her life to paint a portrait of the world through her very unusual lens. She carries an old Polaroid camera through much of the book, shooting photos, then meticulously peeling off the back to reveal the created image. If that image seems odd, you never owed a Polaroid.

Patti Smith

Besides the coffee habit, Smith manages to lose things here and there - a notebook on a plane, a favorite coat, even once her camera. She is quite sanguine about these losses often faintly linking them to the death of her husband Fred. Fred is a specter in the book, but friendly one.

Perhaps the most rewarding parts of M Train come in the form of snippets of languid language  peppered with occasional aphorisms, all waiting to be discovered.

My favorite? "Not all dreams need to be realized..."

M Train is a dreamy book that triggers emotions and memories. Highly recommended, especially for writers.
 

A hero makes mistakes in 'The Crossing' by Michael Connelly

POINT RICHMOND, Calif. - Michael Connelly's popular detective series featuring Detective Harry Bosch keeps up the tradition of suspense and fast action in Connelly's latest novel, The Crossing.

In this best-seller,  (Little, Brown and Company, 2015) Detective Bosch is retired and in a dilemma over whether to work as investigator to help clear a man wrongly accused of murder. He's in a dilemma because he has spent his entire career fighting against slimey defense attorneys.

In this case, however, he's related to the attorney (who doesn't seem slimey at all).

Connelly

The story is fast-paced with plenty of the action you want to see in a detective novel.

In this book however, the mistakes made by the detective seem more glaring than in most such novels. And these mistakes actually make the Bosch character much more believable.

Harry Bosch is kind of a prickly character, too, but still lovable. An Amazon TV show is worth watching if you need to put a video image to the book.

The TV Harry Bosch

The Crossing is recommended reading.

If you are out west, the book is available at the Point Richmond Public Library. But I suspect my home library in Watkins Glen, NY has a copy (or two!) also.

Latest 'Jack Reacher' novel is another big winner

POINT RICHMOND, Calif. - My friend John Miles in New York is a huge Jack Reacher novel fan.

I believe he has read all the novels in the Reacher series.

If you are not a follower of author Lee Child's work, the character Jack Reacher has been dishing out justice for 20 books. Twenty! And my amigo John has read every one of them.

And so when I got done reading Reacher Novel No. 20 - titled Make Me - I emailed him right away to tell him how impressed I was with the book. He congratulated me on finally getting around to reading a Reacher novel, then told me to go back to the very first Jack Reacher tome, Killing Floor.

If the Jack Reacher name seems familiar, it could be because of the 2012 movie by the same name or the movie about to come out this month, titled Jack Reacher: Never Go Back. Both star veteran actor Tom Cruise, who actually bears a slight resemblance to novel author Lee Childs.

Author Lee Childs

The Reacher character is complex with a military police background. He's a drifter. He's dangerous. And he has a strong sense of right and wrong.

At one point in Make Me, after a blazing gunfight, a gangster-murderer who has tried to kill Reacher is gurgling in his own blood, dying on the floor. If he lives, he will put Reacher, a former female FBI agent and a family in danger. When Reacher goes to finish off the bad guy on the floor, the FBI agent stops him.

"You can't do that," the former FBI agent says.
"What," Reacher says. "It was ok to murder him the first time, but not the second time?"
"It's wrong," the former FBI agent said again.
"It was right the first time, when he was a piece of shit who was about to rape you at gunpoint. Did he change? Did he suddenly become some kind of saintly martyr we should rush straight to the hospital. When did that part happen?"

You might think you can imagine what happened. You would be wrong.

This most recent Jack Reacher novel comes highly recommended. In the coming weeks, I'll be reading more of them (provided the Point Richmond library cooperates).

I will let you know if they measure up - or are even better than Make Me.
 

Tom Cruise as Jack Reacher in the 2012 film, 'Jack Reacher' Yes, a fight is breaking out...

'The Heart Goes Last' - a winner of a novel by Margaret Atwood

WATKINS GLEN, New York - All of Margaret Atwood's books have a certain weirdness about them.

The Heart Goes Last is no exception.

Set in a near semi-dystopian future, it starts out calmly, with a couple living in their car. It's almost pedestrian in the way the tale unfolds. But like all of Atwood's works, you get hooked into the lives of the characters quickly.

A handful pages later, there is no way to put this book down.

The Heart Goes Last critiques how we deal with problems - personal and cultural - in society, today and maybe tomorrow. If there is a tomorrow.

And like most Atwood tomes, the good people and the bad people shift roles back and forth, sometimes several times. It's not hard to follow, or swallow. But when the shifts come, they are unexpected.

The novel takes a dim view of our computerized lives, how easily we can be manipulated by authority, and how in the end, most people opt for safety and security over freedom.

Margaret Atwood

But in the process readers get to meet Marilyn Monroe and Elvis impersonators, criminals, oversexed couples and a charismatic leader named Ed.

Really, his name is Ed. Not grand wizard, just plain old Ed.

The Heart Goes Last is a good read, fast-paced, and offers lots of interesting life lessons/observations and cultural critiques.

It's on the new book shelf at the Watkins Glen Public Library.

'The Martian' - a movie for the 21st Century

ACIDALIA PLANITIA, Mars - Okay, a dateline is supposed to be indicative of where the author wrote the story (or in this case blog). But, admittedly, I did not visit this off-planet location, where most of the action in the movie, The Martian takes place.

It's a whopper of an action-packed science fiction tale. But unlike Star Trek or Star Wars, this is based on real NASA-style science with enough special effects and drama to keep you in your seat for the more than 2 hours of running time for this film. 

(NOTE TO FILM GOERS - USE THE RESTROOM BEFORE THE MOVIE.)

The basic story and plot is simple enough. If you watch the movie trailer, you will get the drift. Unfortunately, the trailer gives away way too much. But I won't do that here.

Jeff Daniels

What I will say is that this movie is full of humor with the drama. And just when you think it is going to be predictable, it surprises.

The acting by Matt Damon and the balance of cast is superb. You should recognize most of the faces - even Jeff Daniels, who, I swear, is wearing the same suit he did as TV Anchor Will McAvoy on HBO's The Newsroom.

Matt Damon

The timing of the release of the movie at almost the same moment as scientists discovered water on Mars is as creepy as it is uncanny. As teenager I was steeped in novels by Isaac Asimov and Ray Bradbury.  I dreamed of being an astronaut and going to Mars. I missed that spaceship a long time ago. 


But perhaps The Martian will help reignite space exploration by the U.S. Certainly the Chinese and other nations are passing us by. Or already have.

Interestingly, the Chinese space program plays a big role in this movie.

Recommended without reservation - a good movie and worth seeing on the big screen.

'Where All Light Tends to Go' - a novel about the dark side

WATKINS GLEN, New York - David Joy's first novel, Where All Light Tends to Go, races along at times like a detective potboiler, at others it's as descriptive as a novel by veteran novelist James Lee Burke.

Joy has a talent for keeping the reader's pulse pounding while creating vivid scenes that stick in the mind - sometimes in very uncomfortable ways.

His description of country thugs using acid on the face of a tied-up victim comes to mind.

The book takes place in North Carolina, following a high school dropout who is traveling in his father's crime-ridden footsteps. There are fights, drugs, fights over drugs, more drugs, guns and drugs, and enough petty criminality to make many readers turn away from the tale.

But the story was so compelling, turning away was never option for me.

Author David Joy, sporting a North Carolina look

As the final chapters unfold, there are two relatively clear plot lines for the balance of the book. I would not describe either as being potentially happy endings. But it does end (of course) with several twists that kept me on edge right through the final scene.

Don't give up on this book as you read it.

Where All Light Tends to Go is a powerful book that might give you some troubling dreams. But it's worth the read.

And it's on the new book shelf at the Watkins Glen Public Library.

Biblio TECH argues how important libraries still are

WATKINS GLEN, New York - John Palfrey's 2015 book, Biblio TECH: Why Libraries Matter More Than Ever in the Age of Google is not a page turner in the usual sense.

But Palfrey forcefully refutes the notion that libraries - and librarians - are dinosaurs in the face of Google and Internet search engines.

That point might be obvious to anyone reading a book review like this. But he talks at length about that it's not so obvious, particularly to young people who view libraries as anachronisms and see the libraries they have access to falling apart.

The downsizing and de-funding of libraries has been one of the great tragedies of the late 20th and early 21st centuries in the U.S., largely because libraries are sooooo bloody important to democracy. But Palfrey makes a persuasive case on behalf of libraries and explains their changing role well.

Palfrey runs through the history of public libraries, cloud computing, the importance of copyright, and the human networking of librarians - among many other topics.

It's the kind of book in which you can cherry pick sections to study and still get a good overall sense of what he is trying to get across.

John Palfrey

In his concluding chapter, he struck a deep chord with me about the importance of serendipity in the library experience. I picked up his book, along with two others, from a shelf at the Watkins Glen Public Library a few days ago. I would never have picked his book out of some Amazon catalog or stumbled on it while doing some bit of Internet searching.

"For some people, it is impossible to come out of the stacks without armfuls of books, even if they went 

into the stacks seeking just one." (Page 208)

Amen to that, John Palfrey. Amen.

 Biblio TECH: Why Libraries Matter More Than Ever in the Age of Google is on the new book/browsing shelf at the Watkins Glen Public Library.

Right where it belongs, unless you check it out to read it.

Back to summertime and Seneca Lake living at the VPYC

VALOIS - Adm. Fox and I moved back into the Valois Point Yacht Club clubhouse this morning, greeted by arguably the nicest weather of the summer.

Crimson Tide on her mooring at the VPYC

Not hot, not cold. Clear and sunny.

Even the sailboat Crimson Tide was smiling down on her mooring in front of the dock. I couldn't see the Spirit of Louise pontoon boat. But I know the petrol tank and the beer locker are both ready for a cruise.

Our hiatus living in Watkins Glen and going back and forth to the VPYC while sons Dustin and Dylan - and nephew Alex - were visiting was a nice blend of living arrangements.

It was sad to see them leave, even though there are plans afoot for a late September trip to California.

But for the moment, I am watching to see if the weather forecast holds.

If it does, this weekend and the next two weeks will include a lot of on-the-water time.

'The Sixth Extinction' - and guess who is causing it?

WATKINS GLEN, New York - The Sixth Extinction (2014) is about an in-process event on a our planet that likely eventually spells the end of civilization as we know it.

Nice thought for a summer day, right?

Sorry!

It's also attempts to explain earlier mass extinctions, like the one that wiped out the dinosaurs, perhaps the most familiar of all such events taught in schools.

For the record, what we learned in sixth grade science about that extinction is probably dead-ass wrong.

Amazingly, by the time you are done reading New Yorker magazine writer Elizabeth Kolbert's work, it's  not so frightening. Species - all life - comes and goes in waves on our planet just as it has for the last, oh, half a billion years. And that ebb and flow likely will continue.

This time around, of course, humans are using ever-clever brains to hurry the extinction process along. But if humans are a natural part of earth (and not dropped here via some intergalactic space shuttle), then what's going on - will go on - is really just natural. Right?

Right?

Kolbert

The book looks closely at science, some politics, and specific instances in the world, present and past where species have died out. Kolbert explains why frogs are important bellwethers and why big mammals with slow reproductive rates go extinct so fast.

It's a complicated book, but still an easy read for the most part.

And it also has some revelations that are pretty startling. For example, you almost surely have some Neanderthal genes lurking in you. Really.

The Sixth Extinction is well-worth reading and is on the new book shelf at the Watkins Glen Public Library.

"The Daylight Marriage" - a troubling family potboiler

WATKINS GLEN, New York - Heidi Pitlor's novel The Daylight Marriage chronicles a troubled marriage that explodes in the early chapters.

But the novel is only partly about the relationship between the wife and husband. It also looks at a teenage daughter, a young son and a community.

The Daylight Marriage is the second book of its type I've picked up recently from the shelf at the Watkins Glen library's browsing section. I'm not sure if there are more of these - or if the writing is so good I can't pass them up.

Maybe both.

Pitlor's book uses the familiar technique of chapters bouncing back and forth between the major characters as they go about their way through the novel. It works well and builds the tension quickly.

The novel becomes a page turner when the wife leaves home one morning after going through a bruising psychological battle with her husband the night before.

Heidi Pitlor

And she stays gone.

The missing wife - and she is missing as in call-the-police missing - sets up a family-community drama that is impossible to look away from. Like a car wreck.

The Daylight Marriage has a surprise ending, too. It seems obvious in hindsight, but not so much as the final chapters unfolded.

The novel on the new book shelf at the Watkins Glen library.

Town of Reading Chair shuts down Crestwood comments

TOWN OF READING, New York - What started as a demonstration of citizen civility and democracy in the parking lot of the Town of Reading Town Hall Wednesday devolved inside when the Town Board chair declared no comments about a controversial project to store 88 million gallons of propane in salt caverns would be allowed.

Press conference outside Reading Town Hall

A crowd of about 40 people,  most of whom were there to comment and/or support the notion that the proposal by Crestwood Midstream of Houston is lunacy, were stunned by the chairman's comments.

Just prior to the meeting, a press conference was held at which citizens outlined their concerns and mentioned two earlier, very civil conversations with the Town Board.

But Wednesday night the balance of the town board members were mute while chairman Marvin Switzer became visibly angry when a member of the Concerned Reading Residents tried to update the board on their activities.

Later in the meeting he read a note handed to him from a resident who asked for him to publicly state his reasons for shutting down public comments. He never said why and stalked out of the room after the meeting. He declined to answer questions from reporters, also.

By the way, the limiting of the comments is illegal... Click here for the LINK that explains why...

And here's a short video with some meeting highlights:

Jill Essbaum's 'Hausfrau' is as fascinating as it is unsettling.

WATKINS GLEN, New York - Jill Alexander's Essbaum's Hausfrau is a book as fascinating as it is unsettling.

Set in Switzerland (Who doesn't love the Swiss?) it details the life of a housewife (thus the title) named Anna who seems to sleepwalk through life with her husband, Bruno Benz.

If he's any relation to the automobile Benz's, it's not apparent. And the primary mode of transportation in the book are trains. Pay attention to the trains. They begin and end the book like, well, bookends.

The Benz family is well off with three children and should, by most measures, be happy. Or at least content. But the family, the friends, the social fabric is harboring a major problem, most of it related to hausfrau Anna.

The book has received mixed reviews, perhaps because of its dreamlike quality. It might also be getting some thumbs-down assessments because Anna has a weakness for men - other than her husband.

A New York Times review by Janet Maslin was particularly savage:

"Here’s a sampling of Ms. Essbaum’s prose, which can have all 

the charm of a sink full of dishwater: “Anna examined herself in the mirror. 

She was neither too tall nor too short, neither too fat nor too thin. Her hair fell in easy but shaggy shoulder-length waves. It was the color of top dirt and it was graying around her forehead (she dyed it). What do they see in me, men? 

She wasn’t being modest. She truly didn’t know.”

The charm of a sink full of dishwater? Kee-rist, Janet Maslin, I would use the paragraph you hate in a creative writing seminar as an example of excellent prose. Perhaps it's because Ms. Essbaum is best known as an award-winning poet, that has Maslin's knickers so twisted.

The unraveling of Anna's life is difficult to watch, but irresistible. Yes, it's exactly like watching a slow-motion train wreck, if I can be allowed to drag out the train metaphor one more time.

Jill Alexander Essbaum

There are also plenty of sometimes unnerving cross-cultural, social, psychological and language-based threads scattered through the book. They keep the plot moving briskly while the reader is lulled into thinking things are not really changing all that much. They are.

An intriguing book worth reading. But if a few sex scenes or issues of adulterous behavior bother you, don't dive into it.

On the bookshelves of the Watkins Glen Public Library. Hausfrau is also available online and in audiobook format.

First phase of the VPYC rebuild done - next the bar!

VALOIS, New York - The first bit of rebuilding the Valois Point Yacht Club was completed this afternoon, just ahead of a thunderstorm, if I am reading the weather radar correctly. (Santo Crappo!)

We will have shade

It was just such a thunderstorm last summer that cleaned the VPYC "clubhouse" right off the end of the dock - bar, bar stools, chairs, shade structure - even the owl that was supposed to keep the seagulls from landing on the dock.

He didn't do a very good job. Half the time I looked down from the overlook, a seagull would be sitting on its head.

Tomorrow some barstools, chairs and various summer equipment will be put out for members and guests.

The rebuilding of the bar will take a bit, but hopefully in place by Tuesday afternoon when cousin Kathleen McAvoy arrives for a visit.

Let the summer begin! (Finally...)

'Doing the Devil's Work' - a novel with good and bad cops

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana - Female characters sometimes suffer badly at the hands of male authors. It's something I am struggling with right now, drafting a novel called Jack's Boat. The first half of the book centers around a female character, the second half a male lead.

It's complicated.

But in Bill Loehfelm's Doing the Devil's Work, he pulls it off nicely with a female police officer in New Orleans who is tough, human, and above all honest. It's hard to imagine Maureen Coughlin involved in any of the wildly awful incidents we see posted on YouTube too often of police going rogue.

The character of Maureen Coughlin made her first appearance in Loehflem's earlier book, The Devil She Knows, a novel on my list to read soon.

But in Doing the Devil's Work the author has Coughlin fight against police corruption, racism, militants, cop haters and ultra-wealthy socialites of post Katrina New Orleans who believe they can do no wrong. There's drugs, money, danger, and definitely some violence.

It is a mystery cop book.

What makes the main character so intriguing is that she is flawed but recognizes it. Her struggles become the reader's as you make your way through the chapters.

Bill Loehflem

I wish she smoked fewer cigarettes, but that's part of that flaw thing.

Several times in Doing the Devil's Work, I thought that the author might be making his female cop just a little too tough - too male. But just as I thought that, the scene would shift and it would become obvious that any cop - male or female - would have to be that tough to survive.

Recommended reading. And on the new book shelf at the Watkins Glen Public Library.

'This Changes Everything' changes, well, everything

VALOIS, New York - This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate is a fascinating book to read from a journalist's standpoint, full of amazing details about what we can expect - and not expect - in future years as humans grapple (and don't grapple) with the fallout of man-made changes from climate change.

From the standpoint of a citizen of earth, it's the kind of book that makes a person want to throw up their hands and give up.

Naomi Klein

Naomi Klein's book isn't without hope for humankind. But her descriptions of the obstacles we face to slowing down the warming of the earth from excess CO2 emissions nearly defy description.

But I will try, of course.

Right out of the publishing blocks, Klein jumps into her central thesis. Capitalism, with its madcap drive for growth (and increasingly voracious appetite for energy) is largely to blame for our current overhearing environmental predicament. Most of all, she blames the world's faith in the market to save the planet. The free market, she argues, is what got us into this mess - and continues to keep us from implementing solutions.

There are solutions to provide alternative energy and stop the aggressive expansion of fossil fuel extraction (and use). But she cites examples of how anytime these solutions get close to touching any kind of negative impact on corporate profits they disappear as quickly as trees and animals in the tar sands area of Alberta, Canada.

Klein also takes a solid whack at many of the supposedly green organizations which, it turns out, are heavily invested in oil and gas company stocks as part of their portfolios. And in most cases they defend the investments because of what they tout as the overall good service they are performing.

But Klein's most frightening - and depressing - section is about the potential use of geoengineering to solve the climate change crisis. Rather than try to lower emissions and use less heat-inducing technologies (like solar panels or wind turbines), many governments (and scientists) are exploring incredibly wild technological schemes that would make probably Gene Roddenberry (creator of the original Star Trek TV series) blush with disbelief.

These schemes are being considered seriously and quietly. But if I read Klein correctly, when we start experiencing even more severe weather events and climate-related catastrophes, expect to hear, for example, about shooting particles into the atmosphere to block the sun's rays and slow down warming.

What could possibly go wrong with that idea?

Klein's book is detailed, footnoted and written in a clever enough style that even though it sometimes can cause the reader to gasp with disbelief, it's never dull. Depression-inducing, absolutely. But never dull.

I liked the book enough that I ordered a copy to have in my library. Which means I will reread it so I can mark it up with a highlighter. I think some parts of it are likely to become part of my talk, "Fracking Fiction: You Can't Make This Stuff Up."

The book is on the new book shelf at the Watkins Glen Public Library.

Jon Krakauer's 'Missoula' - powerful and disturbing

WATKINS GLEN, New York - Jon Krakauer's latest book, Missoula, is a disturbing tale about justice and injustice in the Montana town from which the title of the book is taken.

Krakauer, author of Into Thin Air, Into the Wild and my personal favorite, Under the Banner of Heaven, has done a stellar job of capturing the events and emotions surrounding a rash of rapes of young women - and the fallout for the community and everyone involved.

In telling the story, the author takes no prisoners and uses documents, news accounts and interviews to weave his narrative. But he includes plenty of his own observations demonstrating how most of these cases were badly bungled.

It's a stinging indictment of Missoula, the University of Montana, and the football culture that seems to dominate the town.

Jon Krakauer

It's a sad tale, too, as Krakauer relates many of the horrible outcomes and repercussions - for the female victims - even those cases where, in theory, justice has been done.

Missoula is a disturbing book - but important. It should be required reading for every university administrator on the planet.

Missoula is on the new book shelf at the Watkins Glen, NY public library and available through Amazon.com at this link: MISSOULA.

The thrill of victory, the agony of da feet

WATKINS GLEN, New York - The Green Festival in Washington D.C. had an amazing array of weird gadgets and paraphernalia, all environmentally friendly, of course.

And in our wanderings around the festival after I gave my talk, "Fracking Fiction: You Can't Make This Stuff Up," Admiral Sylvia Fox and I discovered a shoe product that turned out to be also feet-friendly.

They are called massaging insoles, made by a Florida company (where else?) called Best Sole.

And damn! They work.

For years, no matter how good my shoes were, 15 minutes of standing relatively still on concrete floors guaranteed my lower back would start to hurt. Really hurt.

And so I would find a chair or barstool (I am partial barstools, but that's another issue) to keep my back from getting out of control.

Now, 10 days into wearing these shoe inserts I can report that I can stand  on a concrete floor for, well, I haven't timed it, exactly. But I haven't felt the need to grab a chair or barstool when we are out socializing.

So there it is for folks who don't like to stand on concrete. Massaging insoles.

Oh, one more thing.

When you first put these things in your shoes, you think there might be rocks in your socks. Give it a minute and walk a little. It feels weird, but good.