November 2025
Books read:
- 2666 by Roberto Bolaño
- Homesick for Another World by Ottessa Moshfegh
- The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson
- Coffintop Mountain near Lyons (Nov 3rd)
- Middle Fork Lake near Red River, NM (Nov 14th)
- Deadman Gulch to Coffintop Connector near Lyons (Nov 18th)
Song(s) of the month: Todd Snider
- Alright Guy
- Conservative, Christian…
- Happy New Year
- Stuck on the Corner
- Enjoy Yourself
- All My Life
- Beer Run
- Working on a Song
November Summary:
This month I turned 67 and my blog turned 7. I started writing this blog as I turned 60. I wanted some way to document my thoughts on two of my favorite activities: Reading and hiking. I've strayed into other topics along the way like political divisiveness, climate change, science, music, baseball and grandkids. I don't expect anyone to read what I write. I mainly write it because I like putting my thoughts down. I guess I also wanted to leave some sort of legacy behind for my grandkids since none of my past life is documented on any social media and I've never written a diary. I guess some of my past was recorded in the annual Christmas letters I would write, especially when the kids were young and I had a lot to say about that through my exhaustion. I wasn't sure how long I would keep this blog up, but I love doing it, so I guess I'll just keep it up until I can no longer put coherent thoughts into words (some would say that time is now...).
In addition to my birthday, we also had another wonderful Thanksgiving celebration which included 11 adults, 8 kids, 4 dogs, a deep fried turkey, the best red chile enchiladas, 4 hand made pies, and so much more. It was mass chaos as usual, but the fun kind. I got to sit at the kids table and be a kid again. Family, Friends and Football, the best holiday there is. I have so much to be thankful for. I've been married to the same amazing woman for 44 years, our family is growing and is relatively close by, my health is good, I do things that I love to do, my hard work over the years has paid off in a perfect retirement, and I don't have any friends or family that would call someone a "piggy" or "retarded" during Thanksgiving week, or ever.
Even though I only read three books this month, two of them combined for over 1,400 pages, so I was lucky to get through that many. My reading took me from an epic story surrounding a reclusive German writer and the deaths of 200 women in northern Mexico, a wonderful short story collection, and one of the best science fiction books I've read which some have called the best non-fiction science fiction ever written. My rambling was somewhat limited by Thanksgiving week activities but I was able to take my annual birthday mountain hike, then took a nice uphill walk to a pretty lake near Red River with my daughter, and I was able to connect one of my workout hikes with a way to get up to my annual birthday mountain hike. Enjoy!
Things My Grandkids Say:
When my five-year-old grandson was asked by his mom why he had gotten so dirty, he responded, "I guess I was just meant to be dirty."
Song(s) of the month: Todd Snider
Most people have no idea who Todd Snider is. That’s because he mainly plays Americana music which he himself has defined as “unsuccessful country music.” He really escapes any sort of genre because his songs range from country to Americana to folk to rock 'n roll to blues and even gospel. I only know of him because I saw him open for John Prine in the early 90s at the Orpheum Theater in Phoenix. He was a revelation. His storytelling was as entertaining as his songs, sort of like John Prine and Nanci Griffith, but with far more self-deprecating humor. Todd died suddenly this month from complications surrounding pneumonia. Those complications are almost like the story of Todd’s life and songs. It seems he was badly beaten up outside of a hotel/bar (no surprise), got stitched up at a hospital, was off his pain meds (he had lifelong back pain) and returned to the hospital ranting at the employees there; the cops were called, he was arrested (no surprise). He died a few days later at his home in Nashville at only 59 years old. It hit me hard. We were recently looking for his tour dates to try and catch him live again.
I hope that more people discover his music now that he’s been in the news a bit after his death. He is truly a great American songwriter. Like many of the greats (Hank Williams, Townes van Zandt, Jerry Jeff Walker), his personal life was a bit of a mess. But it made for some great stories, both in song and in the stories he told to introduce his songs. Before I get into the songs, here are two of my favorite stories he tells:
Here's his 11 minute story about The Ballad of the Devil’s Backbone Tavern:
And here’s his 8 minute KK Rider story that just builds and builds. His comic timing is great:
Alright Guy – I think this might have been the first song of his that I played after watching him. A prime example of his self-deprecating humor and of his likely life experiences. Sample lyrics:
Now maybe I'm dirty, and maybe I smoke a little dope.
It ain't like I'm going on TV and tearing up pictures of the pope.
I know I get wild and I know I get drunk.
But it ain't like I gotta bunch of bodies in my trunk.
My old man used to call me a no-good punk
And I still don't know why.
I think I'm an alright guy.
Conservative Christian, Right Wing, Republican, Straight, White, American Male – He normally introduces this song by saying that sometimes he shares his opinion on social issues in his songs, but he also says that he’s not trying to change anyone’s opinion, he just does it because it rhymes. Typical intro for him. Anyway, this 20-year-old song sure seems to well describe our country’s division these days. Sample lyrics:
Conservative Christian, right-wing Republican
Straight, white, American males
Gay-bashin', black-fearin', poor-fightin', tree-killin'
Regional leaders of sales
Frat housin', keg-tappin', shirt-tuckin', back-slappin'
Haters of hippies like me
Tree-huggin', peace-lovin', pot-smokin', porn-watchin'
Lazy-ass hippies like me
Happy New Year – When I first heard this song I enjoyed the music so much that I didn’t quite hear all the lyrics. On a second listen I said, wait minute. There is some pretty deep philosophy embedded here. And a pretty good treatise on religion. Sample lyrics:
Seems like my neighbor wants to kill what he cant understand
I say we cant just kill what we don't understand
But I turn on my tv and see that oh yes we can
We can and we have since then dawn of man
For countless gods whose only real seeming plan
Was to see to it that clinging to life was our fate
And you gotta admit that life's pretty great
Stuck on the Corner (Prelude to a Heart Attack) – Another song that I had to listen to a few times to catch it all. It’s become one of my favorites of his. A tour de force description of how the American dream of trying to keep up with the Joneses can lead to overstress and unhappiness. You can feel the tension and the inevitability of the parenthetical note in the song title. Sample lyrics:
I didn't even want to study economics
My parents made me cause they said it would be practical
I can't make my kids do a goddam thing I tell them to
My kid's an unrepentant radical
He is as unimpressed by the plaques in my cubicle
As I am secretly impressed by his ability
to look at everything so completely irresponsibly
Enjoy Yourself – I’ve been singing this song to my hard-working corporate wife for years now. She hears the message, but like the previous song says, sometimes we get stuck on the corner of sanity and madness and can’t tell the difference. It’s a song about getting older with a message about doing what you love before it’s too late. Sample Lyrics:
You work and work for years and years, you're always on the go
You never take a minute off, too busy making dough
Someday, you say, you'll have your fun when you're a millionaire
Imagine all the fun you'll have in some old rocking chair
All My Life – I wasn’t sure if he could write a love song until I heard this song and also the song Missing You. Right up there with the best love songs written. Sample lyrics:
I waited all my life for you
All this time I knew you were out there
All this time I knew someday I'd find you somewhere
Beer Run – When I first heard this song, it took me back to my high school days. So much time spent looking for a way to buy beer. It’s a fun song live.
Found a store with a sign said their beer was coldest
So they sent in Brad 'cause he looked the oldest
He got a case of beer and a candy bar
Walked over to where all the registers are
Laid his fake ID on the countertop
The clerk looked, and turned and looked back up and stopped
And said "Boy, I'm not gonna call the cops
"But I am gonna keep this card"
The guys both took it pretty hard
Working on a Song – This is a more recent song of his. One you can only write after you have some years behind you. It’s pretty poignant now that he’s gone. Sample lyrics:
But you know, giving up a dream is just like making one come true
It's easy to sit around talking about, it's harder to go out and do
But for this one last question, I'll give up on this song
"Where Will I Go Now That I'm Gone?"
I could just keep going on, and I felt bad leaving off songs like Tillamook County Jail, Missing You, Just In Case, Keep Off the Grass, Tension, Good News Blues, Play a Train Song, Sunshine, Talkin’ Seattle Grunge Band Blues, Age Like Wine, and Can’t Complain. Put them all in a play list and listen to them, you won’t be disappointed.
Coffintop Mountain near Lyons – Well I’ve hiked this mountain the past three years now on or close to my birthday, so I guess it’s become my annual birthday hike in Colorado. In Arizona my annual birthday hike was the 3.7 mile Circumference Trail (renamed Freedom Trail after 9/11) in the heart of Phoenix, which circled around the iconic Squaw Peak (renamed Piestewa Peak for political correctness). I could always count on November weather being perfect in Phoenix, but November weather in Colorado is unpredictable at best. This hike maxes out at 8,000 feet so even if there is snow (like there was last year), it’s still walkable. It’s more of a commitment than the Circumference Trail since it’s twice as long. There are three different approaches: One from Hall Ranch, one from Deadman’s Gulch, and one from the Button Rock Dam Road. I’ve yet to take the Deadman’s Gulch approach. Today I started from Button Rock Dam Road which used to be very busy until they banned dogs (due to the area being part of the water delivery system for the city of Longmont). I saw only 5 other people today, none of them hiking to Coffintop. Oh yeah, the name. Pretty simple because as viewed from the front range (and from my backyard) the mountain looks like the top of a coffin.
Today it was a cool day in the upper 40s and lower 50s. Pretty perfect for a steep hike. It’s 3.7 miles and 2,000 feet to the top. The first mile is along Button Rock Dam Road along the North St. Vrain river. It’s nice to hear the rippling of the water as you walk the road. At a mile I turned left onto the Sleepy Lion trail which I followed for around a quarter mile before turning off on some old, unused dirt roads for about a half mile. Then I headed up what I guess is called the Coffintop Mountain trail but there’s no official name, just a social trail that’s been used over the years to get to the top. This trail is the steep part of the hike as it climbs 1,500 feet in just under two miles. You get a few peeks of the big mountains along the way, but the best is saved for the very end where you are awarded with stunning views of Rocky Mountain National Park and the Indian Peaks Wilderness laid out before you. I love sitting up here on top, just taking in this view which also includes the pretty Ralph Price Reservoir below and Roosevelt National Forest stretching on towards the big peaks. I’m not sure if it’s always been up here and I never noticed, or if someone recently placed it this year, but there is a trail register up here now, stuffed into a white cannister. The small notebook only included hikers from 2025, so maybe it is new. So, I signed it, for whatever it’s worth. Then I headed back down to my car with a smile on my face on my 67th birthday, so happy and lucky to be doing what I love.
2666 by Roberto Bolaño – I had read about this author somewhere, can’t remember where, but the article called him one of the great Latin American writers, right up there with Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Pablo Neruda. This was his last novel and he died prior to editing it to completion. But it was “done enough” for his family and publisher when it was released in 2004, a year after his death from liver failure at age 50. The name of the novel seems to be based on an apocalyptic number that Bolaño seemed to use in a previous novel, but nobody seems to be sure. Although he was striving for his masterpiece with this work, he later thought that it could be published as 5 separate novels instead so that his family could reap the benefits of the additional sales after his death. But his family refused this and allowed it to be published the way he had dreamed, all 900 pages of it (1,100 in Spanish)! It is an epic story split into five sections. Each section could be read as a separate novel I suppose, but there were two things tying the five sections together that make it a masterpiece in my opinion: The brutal rapes and murders of over 200 women in the northern Mexico town of Santa Teresa (based loosely on Juarez, Mexico where hundreds of women were raped and murdered in the 1990s and early 2000s); and also the reclusive (and fictional) German author with the bizarre name of Benno von Archimboldi. Briefly, the five parts are:
The Critics: Four European literary critics eventually become friends and part time lovers over their shared love of Archimboldi’s work. They meet at conferences all over the world and end up in the northern Mexico town of Santa Teresa because they heard rumors that the reclusive author was living here. Great story about the academic world and obsession.
Amalfitano: Óscar Amalfitano was a minor character in the first section. He is a philosophy professor at the university in Santa Teresa and was a sort of unwilling tour guide for the critics in the first story. This section unfolds his incredible life as he lived around the world with his wife and daughter, eventually ending up in Mexico after his wife abandoned him and his daughter. He worries about his daughter in light of the terrible crimes in the city. Great character story about love, abandonment, and career.
Fate: Oscar Fate is an American journalist from New York City who writes for a Harlem-based African-American cultural magazine. While he’s in Chicago covering a story, his magazine asks him to fly to northern Mexico to cover a boxing match between an African-American and a Mexican. While in Mexico he hears about the murders and asks his magazine if he can cover them. He ends up interviewing one of the suspects (Klaus Haas) in the prison, along with Oscar Amalfitano’s daughter Rosa and a Mexican journalist. Great story about journalism.
The Crimes: This section covers the rapes and murders of the women in Santa Teresa and brutally describes 112 of them! It was tough to read, but fascinating. You learn more about one of the suspects, Klaus Haas, who was introduced in the previous section. Great crime story.
Archimboldi: The last section goes into great detail about the life of the reclusive author introduced in the first section. From his life growing up with a one-legged father and a one-eyed mother, through his brutal campaign as a German soldier in World War II where he started to develop his view of the world and his penchant for writing. We also find out about his sister whom he had not heard from since the war ended. Her troubled son ends up emigrating to America where he ends up in prison in northern Mexico…you see where this is going? Insanely brilliant. Great war story and coming of age story.
Here are some lines:
they dug up the barbecue, and a smell of meat and hot earth spread over the patio in a thin curtain of smoke that enveloped them all like the fog that drifts before a murder, and vanished mysteriously as the women carried the plates to the table, leaving clothing and skin impregnated with its aroma.
“So who’s guilty?” asked Pelletier. “There are people who’ve been in prison a long time, but women keep dying,” said one of the boys.
When I opened the glass door I felt something strange, as if everything I saw or felt from that moment on would determine the course of my life to come.
Two years after she sent this last letter, seven years after she’d abandoned Amalfitano and her daughter, Lola came home and found them gone.
literature does have a future, believe it or not, and so does history
At that same moment the Santa Teresa police found the body of another teenage girl, half buried in a vacant lot in one of the neighborhoods on the edge of the city, and a strong wind from the west hurled itself against the slope of the mountains to the east, raising dust and a litter of newspaper and cardboard on its way through Santa Teresa
Spring, Admapu law ordered that children should be conceived in summer, when all fruits were ripe; thus they would be born in spring when the land awakens in the fullness of its strength; when all the animals and birds are born.
She looks like a nun, thought Quincy, or like she belongs to a dangerous cult.
during the long years in prison we’d forgotten what we knew and we’d learned nothing, nothing but cruelty from the guards and sadism from our fellow inmates.
Reading is like thinking, like praying, like talking to a friend, like expressing your ideas, like listening to other people’s ideas, like listening to music (oh yes), like looking at the view, like taking a walk on the beach.
“And how are they killed?” asked Fate. “Nobody’s sure. They disappear. They vanish into thin air, here one minute, gone the next. And after a while their bodies turn up in the desert.”
“They’re good people, friendly, hospitable. Mexicans are hardworking, they’re hugely curious about everything, they care about people, they’re brave and generous, their sadness isn’t destructive, it’s life giving,” said Rosa Amalfitano as they crossed the border into the United States.
You have to listen to women. You should never ignore a woman’s fears. It was something like that, remembered Fate, that his mother or her neighbor, the deceased Miss Holly, used to say when both of them were young and he was a boy.
No one pays attention to these killings, but the secret of the world is hidden in them.
For a while, as he swept, the priest talked and talked: about the city, about the trickle of Central American immigrants, about the hundreds of Mexicans who arrived each day in search of work at the maquiladoras or hoping to cross the border, about the human trafficking by polleros and coyotes, about the starvation wages paid at the factories, about how those wages were still coveted by the desperate who arrived from Querétaro or Zacatecas or Oaxaca, desperate Christians, said the priest (which was an odd way to describe them, especially for a priest), who embarked on the most incredible journeys, sometimes alone and sometimes with their families in tow, until they reached the border and only then did they rest or cry or pray or get drunk or get high or dance until they fell down exhausted.
Well, this posole isn’t quite the same as the original posole, said Epifanio. It’s missing an ingredient. What ingredient is that? asked Lalo Cura. Human flesh, said Epifanio. Don’t fu(k with me, said Lalo Cura. It’s true, the Aztecs cooked posole with pieces of human flesh, said Epifanio. I don’t believe it, said Lalo Cura.
Then his mother stared at him with her blue eye and the boy held her gaze with his two blue eyes, and from the corner near the hearth, the one-legged man watched them both with his two blue eyes and for three or four seconds the island of Prussia seemed to rise from the depths.
When the bombers have finished pounding the designated piece of earth, not a single bird can be heard. In fact, not even in the neighboring areas where no bomb has fallen, to either side of the devastated divisions, does a single bird cry.
They rented a room from a man who kept a dairy and lived alone, because he had lost his two sons during the war, one in Russia and the other in Hungary, and his wife had died of sorrow, or so he said, although according to the villagers the man had pushed her into a ravine.
For a while she thought about becoming a vegetarian. Instead, she took up smoking.
Middle Fork Lake near Red River, NM - I’ve just barely started to explore some of the trails near Red River. This is only my second one after Lost Lake last October. Happily, I was able to walk with my daughter on this hike. Both trails begin at the Middle Fork trailhead which, weirdly, is closer to the Taos Ski Valley than to Red River, as the crow flies. But you have to drive through Red River and then south on NM578 for about 7 miles and then west on a bumpy dirt road for about a mile. As you begin the hike there are thousands of downed trees here from the 2021 winter windstorm where 100 mph winds knocked down trees all over northern New Mexico. It took a tremendous amount of effort to restore the trails. According to a sign at the trailhead 1,400 trees had to be removed in order to restore the trail to Lost Lake. It was around 1.3 miles from the trailhead to the junction with the Lost Lake trail. Today we turned right at the waterfall to hike the Middle Fork trail. It was another mile plus to reach the lake after countless switchbacks on an old jeep road. It was 2.4 miles and around 1,000 feet of elevation gain to reach the lake, which had a thin layer of ice on it this morning. It’s a pretty mountain lake with several dispersed campsites surrounding it. I imagine it’s a popular backpacking destination in the summer.
We decided to hike a bit more on an unnamed trail above the lake that appears to take you to the ridge that climbs to Fraser Mountain and Wheeler Peak. We didn’t have time today to make it to the ridge, but we saw a couple of ponds on the map that were about halfway up to the ridge. So, we climbed another 500 feet in about a mile to look for the ponds. Unfortunately, they were off the trail and there were too many downed trees to navigate, so we decided to save this for another time. But this trail above the lake is beautiful. You get some glances at the high ridges above, plus the ground is soft and the area is plush with plant life; a nice change from the old jeep road we used to reach the lake. One day I will hike up to either Fraser Mountain or Wheeler Peak from here. No animals today, not even chipmunks! I guess they’re all preparing for winter. But it was a beautiful day in the mountains with my daughter, so what more can you ask?
Homesick for Another World by Ottessa Moshfegh – I knew nothing of this book when I started reading it, other than it was highly regarded. Chapter one is titled Bettering Myself, and I was riveted. It told the story of this literature teacher who was a mess. Alcoholic, drug addicted, sleeping around. She was a hot mess, but in a fascinating way. I couldn’t wait to read more about her. Then chapter two started telling the story of a Chinese guy in California who was obsessed with video game arcade owner. What?! What happened to the hot mess teacher? I checked the cover of the book. It was a short story collection, not a novel. Oh. I love great short story writing like George Saunders’ Civilwarland In Bad Decline, Tenth of December, Ted Chiang’s Stories of Your Life and Others, Jhumpa Lihiri’s Interpreter of Maladies, and of course Haruki Murikami’s Men Without Women. But I love great novels more because I get to spend more of my time with the characters. Great short stories are like delicious candy, great novels are like delicious meals.
This collection of crazy stories was a finalist of the 2018 Story Prize, an award for short story writing. Tom Waits would LOVE this collection. His songs tell the story of people on the edges of civilization, people down on their luck, living in difficult conditions. If anyone ever makes a series based on these short stories, Tom Waits will have to provide the soundtrack. In addition to the hot mess teacher and obsessed Chinese man that I already mentioned, there is a down on his luck aspiring actor living in a boarding house, a man who works in a boarding house for disabled adults, a middle class teacher who spends her summers in a cheap home she bought in a drug addled part of down where she becomes part of that community for a time, an incredible story of a couple whose trip to a vacation island exposes the seedy side of those resorts, and then there’s the twin brother and sister raised by their mother whom they call “the woman” and their desire to leave this earth and go back to where they came from. Craziness abounds in this collection of stories containing all these characters that were somehow developed in the mind of this really great writer. I'll have put her four novels on my list of books to read. Here are some lines:
Every year, the kids had to take a big exam that let the state know just how bad I was at doing my job.
I passed out the tests, had them break the seals, showed them how to fill in the bubbles properly with the right pencils, told them, “Try your best,” and then I took the tests home and switched all their answers. No way those dummies would cost me my job.
“I have to pick up a package at the post office.” He made it sound like he was going on a secret mission, like what he had to do was so difficult, so perilous, required so much strength of character, he needed my support. He slid the pick-up slip from the postman across the counter as proof.
I heard him in the bathroom screaming into a towel. I wondered who had taught him how to do that. I was slightly impressed.
He always hid his shame and self-loathing under an expression of shame and self-loathing,
I retreated to the cabin that weekend in early spring after a fight with my wife. She was pregnant at the time, and I suppose she felt entitled to treat me terribly. So I went up there to spite her, yes, and in hopes that she would come to appreciate me in my absence, but also to have one last weekend to myself before the baby was born and my life as I’d known it was forever ruined.
My poor wife. I didn’t know how little I loved her until she was dead.
Their “wifebeater” tops left very little to the imagination. I tried to hide my concern, but it was impossible. Hooters was no place for good people
He was materialistic, like my wife. How many blouses and bracelets does a woman need? How many terrible framed watercolors, throw pillows, little silver things shaped like birds or cats, or ceramic hearts filled with potpourri, or crystal ashtrays does a human being require?
sometimes I visited the deluxe shopping center on Route 4, where the fattest people on Earth could be found buzzing around in electronic wheelchairs, trailing huge carts full of hamburger meat and cake mix and jugs of vegetable oil and pillow-size bags of chips.
Riverside Road and Main Street, where the vagrant townsfolk dressed like zombies and kept wolf dogs on rope leashes. The town was rife with meth and heroin.
She was probably around my age, but she looked like a woman with a hundred years of suffering behind her
My mother was a terror. She beat me black and blue, made me chew on bars of soap any time I mouthed off. She forced me to walk miles in the rain to get her plums from a tree, then beat me because they were full of worms. And yet I mourn her passing. I’m a grown woman, and still I cry. You only have one mother. Mine got starved to death and thrown in a trench full of rotting corpses. You are lucky yours is still living. If I were a Christian I would cross myself. Now go call her. You know she loves you.”
He was intense and perturbed and smelled like motor oil and vomit, which is what drew me to him.
I find a sharp butcher knife in the drawer and take it to my room and hide it in my satchel. I kick at the walls for a while. Then I start off for the library to find the fat sister of the man I am going to kill.
A meadlowlark comes and taps its beak on the glass and hovers. Then another comes and flies right into the glass and breaks its neck. Its body falls to the ground. The first meadlowlark flies away. This seems like a good omen.
I hold my arms behind my back, and with the butcher knife in one hand, the jar of poison jam in the other, I kick on Jarek Jaskolka’s door. Waldemar cries and hides against the wall of the house, holding the dead meadlowlark in his hands. He pinches his eyes closed. “I’ll miss you, Waldemar!” I whisper. I wait for the bad man to let me in.
Deadman Gulch to Coffintop Connector near Lyons – As I said in my description of Coffintop Mountain above, there are other ways to approach that mountain. Deadman Gulch is one of my workout hikes near me. It’s 1,100 feet in 1.6 miles, but you gain 1,000 feet of that elevation in the last mile. So, steep. I’ve heard of crazy descriptions of hikes from here to Coffintop involving class 4 scrambles, but from my map reading it seems like it shouldn’t be that crazy. So, after I finished my workout, I did some exploration. My goal was to find the spot where I hiked off trail to Coffintop from its eastern edge back in November of 2023. And I easily found it less than half a mile from the top of the Deadman Gulch trail. I didn’t hike all the way to Coffintop on this day because I know that last 2 miles of off trail is not fun and I didn’t come prepared for that. But now I know I can reach it from Deadman Gulch, which mainly comes in handy if you want to hike with dogs (they don’t allow dogs on either the Button Rock Dam or Hall Ranch approaches).
During my exploration I ran into a couple of mountain bikers who had navigated several trails all the way from Pinewood Springs to Deadman Gulch. That must have been fun planning that one. I fully expected to see them passing me at the base of Coffintop once they explored the top of Deadman Gulch. They weren’t gonna bike down that steep trail where they? They did. I saw their tire marks. I searched for their bodies, but I guess they made it down alive. I don’t know how. Mountain bikers are crazy.
The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson - The author has won several awards for his science fiction writing. Some consider him the greatest living science fiction writer. I thought it was appropriate that he won his first award in 1984. This 2020 novel has been categorized by some into a genre I hadn't heard of before: Hard Science Fiction, which is basically science fiction containing hard facts about science. And it's true, you will learn several facts about climate change in this great novel. There were over 100 chapters spread across 550 plus pages in this compelling book. He seesaws back and forth between two main characters: Mary Murphy is head of the Ministry for the Future, an organization chartered with protecting the lives of all future people of planet Earth; and Frank May, an American aid worker who somehow survives a heat wave in India that kills millions (the opening chapter describes that heat wave and it's intense). The stories of these two characters and their interactions are terrific, but there are several other chapters that drift off into other topics like carbon atoms, world finances, Antarctic drilling, the history of China, Russia and India, and something called a carbon coin. I had a hard time putting it down.
Things My Grandkids Say:
When my five-year-old grandson was asked by his mom why he had gotten so dirty, he responded, "I guess I was just meant to be dirty."
Most people have no idea who Todd Snider is. That’s because he mainly plays Americana music which he himself has defined as “unsuccessful country music.” He really escapes any sort of genre because his songs range from country to Americana to folk to rock 'n roll to blues and even gospel. I only know of him because I saw him open for John Prine in the early 90s at the Orpheum Theater in Phoenix. He was a revelation. His storytelling was as entertaining as his songs, sort of like John Prine and Nanci Griffith, but with far more self-deprecating humor. Todd died suddenly this month from complications surrounding pneumonia. Those complications are almost like the story of Todd’s life and songs. It seems he was badly beaten up outside of a hotel/bar (no surprise), got stitched up at a hospital, was off his pain meds (he had lifelong back pain) and returned to the hospital ranting at the employees there; the cops were called, he was arrested (no surprise). He died a few days later at his home in Nashville at only 59 years old. It hit me hard. We were recently looking for his tour dates to try and catch him live again.
I hope that more people discover his music now that he’s been in the news a bit after his death. He is truly a great American songwriter. Like many of the greats (Hank Williams, Townes van Zandt, Jerry Jeff Walker), his personal life was a bit of a mess. But it made for some great stories, both in song and in the stories he told to introduce his songs. Before I get into the songs, here are two of my favorite stories he tells:
Here's his 11 minute story about The Ballad of the Devil’s Backbone Tavern:
And here’s his 8 minute KK Rider story that just builds and builds. His comic timing is great:
Alright Guy – I think this might have been the first song of his that I played after watching him. A prime example of his self-deprecating humor and of his likely life experiences. Sample lyrics:
Now maybe I'm dirty, and maybe I smoke a little dope.
It ain't like I'm going on TV and tearing up pictures of the pope.
I know I get wild and I know I get drunk.
But it ain't like I gotta bunch of bodies in my trunk.
My old man used to call me a no-good punk
And I still don't know why.
I think I'm an alright guy.
Conservative Christian, Right Wing, Republican, Straight, White, American Male – He normally introduces this song by saying that sometimes he shares his opinion on social issues in his songs, but he also says that he’s not trying to change anyone’s opinion, he just does it because it rhymes. Typical intro for him. Anyway, this 20-year-old song sure seems to well describe our country’s division these days. Sample lyrics:
Conservative Christian, right-wing Republican
Straight, white, American males
Gay-bashin', black-fearin', poor-fightin', tree-killin'
Regional leaders of sales
Frat housin', keg-tappin', shirt-tuckin', back-slappin'
Haters of hippies like me
Tree-huggin', peace-lovin', pot-smokin', porn-watchin'
Lazy-ass hippies like me
Happy New Year – When I first heard this song I enjoyed the music so much that I didn’t quite hear all the lyrics. On a second listen I said, wait minute. There is some pretty deep philosophy embedded here. And a pretty good treatise on religion. Sample lyrics:
Seems like my neighbor wants to kill what he cant understand
I say we cant just kill what we don't understand
But I turn on my tv and see that oh yes we can
We can and we have since then dawn of man
For countless gods whose only real seeming plan
Was to see to it that clinging to life was our fate
And you gotta admit that life's pretty great
Stuck on the Corner (Prelude to a Heart Attack) – Another song that I had to listen to a few times to catch it all. It’s become one of my favorites of his. A tour de force description of how the American dream of trying to keep up with the Joneses can lead to overstress and unhappiness. You can feel the tension and the inevitability of the parenthetical note in the song title. Sample lyrics:
I didn't even want to study economics
My parents made me cause they said it would be practical
I can't make my kids do a goddam thing I tell them to
My kid's an unrepentant radical
He is as unimpressed by the plaques in my cubicle
As I am secretly impressed by his ability
to look at everything so completely irresponsibly
Enjoy Yourself – I’ve been singing this song to my hard-working corporate wife for years now. She hears the message, but like the previous song says, sometimes we get stuck on the corner of sanity and madness and can’t tell the difference. It’s a song about getting older with a message about doing what you love before it’s too late. Sample Lyrics:
You work and work for years and years, you're always on the go
You never take a minute off, too busy making dough
Someday, you say, you'll have your fun when you're a millionaire
Imagine all the fun you'll have in some old rocking chair
All My Life – I wasn’t sure if he could write a love song until I heard this song and also the song Missing You. Right up there with the best love songs written. Sample lyrics:
I waited all my life for you
All this time I knew you were out there
All this time I knew someday I'd find you somewhere
Beer Run – When I first heard this song, it took me back to my high school days. So much time spent looking for a way to buy beer. It’s a fun song live.
Found a store with a sign said their beer was coldest
So they sent in Brad 'cause he looked the oldest
He got a case of beer and a candy bar
Walked over to where all the registers are
Laid his fake ID on the countertop
The clerk looked, and turned and looked back up and stopped
And said "Boy, I'm not gonna call the cops
"But I am gonna keep this card"
The guys both took it pretty hard
Working on a Song – This is a more recent song of his. One you can only write after you have some years behind you. It’s pretty poignant now that he’s gone. Sample lyrics:
But you know, giving up a dream is just like making one come true
It's easy to sit around talking about, it's harder to go out and do
But for this one last question, I'll give up on this song
"Where Will I Go Now That I'm Gone?"
I could just keep going on, and I felt bad leaving off songs like Tillamook County Jail, Missing You, Just In Case, Keep Off the Grass, Tension, Good News Blues, Play a Train Song, Sunshine, Talkin’ Seattle Grunge Band Blues, Age Like Wine, and Can’t Complain. Put them all in a play list and listen to them, you won’t be disappointed.
Today it was a cool day in the upper 40s and lower 50s. Pretty perfect for a steep hike. It’s 3.7 miles and 2,000 feet to the top. The first mile is along Button Rock Dam Road along the North St. Vrain river. It’s nice to hear the rippling of the water as you walk the road. At a mile I turned left onto the Sleepy Lion trail which I followed for around a quarter mile before turning off on some old, unused dirt roads for about a half mile. Then I headed up what I guess is called the Coffintop Mountain trail but there’s no official name, just a social trail that’s been used over the years to get to the top. This trail is the steep part of the hike as it climbs 1,500 feet in just under two miles. You get a few peeks of the big mountains along the way, but the best is saved for the very end where you are awarded with stunning views of Rocky Mountain National Park and the Indian Peaks Wilderness laid out before you. I love sitting up here on top, just taking in this view which also includes the pretty Ralph Price Reservoir below and Roosevelt National Forest stretching on towards the big peaks. I’m not sure if it’s always been up here and I never noticed, or if someone recently placed it this year, but there is a trail register up here now, stuffed into a white cannister. The small notebook only included hikers from 2025, so maybe it is new. So, I signed it, for whatever it’s worth. Then I headed back down to my car with a smile on my face on my 67th birthday, so happy and lucky to be doing what I love.
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| Start at the Button Rock Preserve parking lot |
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| Waterfall from Longmont Reservoir |
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| North St. Vrain Creek |
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| Animals eating other animals |
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| Trail art |
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| Wildflowers in November! |
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| Views to the eastern plains |
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| Ralph Price Reservoir with the Rockies in the background |
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| Snow capped peaks |
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| Lunch spot with views |
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| Views |
The Critics: Four European literary critics eventually become friends and part time lovers over their shared love of Archimboldi’s work. They meet at conferences all over the world and end up in the northern Mexico town of Santa Teresa because they heard rumors that the reclusive author was living here. Great story about the academic world and obsession.
Amalfitano: Óscar Amalfitano was a minor character in the first section. He is a philosophy professor at the university in Santa Teresa and was a sort of unwilling tour guide for the critics in the first story. This section unfolds his incredible life as he lived around the world with his wife and daughter, eventually ending up in Mexico after his wife abandoned him and his daughter. He worries about his daughter in light of the terrible crimes in the city. Great character story about love, abandonment, and career.
Fate: Oscar Fate is an American journalist from New York City who writes for a Harlem-based African-American cultural magazine. While he’s in Chicago covering a story, his magazine asks him to fly to northern Mexico to cover a boxing match between an African-American and a Mexican. While in Mexico he hears about the murders and asks his magazine if he can cover them. He ends up interviewing one of the suspects (Klaus Haas) in the prison, along with Oscar Amalfitano’s daughter Rosa and a Mexican journalist. Great story about journalism.
The Crimes: This section covers the rapes and murders of the women in Santa Teresa and brutally describes 112 of them! It was tough to read, but fascinating. You learn more about one of the suspects, Klaus Haas, who was introduced in the previous section. Great crime story.
Archimboldi: The last section goes into great detail about the life of the reclusive author introduced in the first section. From his life growing up with a one-legged father and a one-eyed mother, through his brutal campaign as a German soldier in World War II where he started to develop his view of the world and his penchant for writing. We also find out about his sister whom he had not heard from since the war ended. Her troubled son ends up emigrating to America where he ends up in prison in northern Mexico…you see where this is going? Insanely brilliant. Great war story and coming of age story.
Here are some lines:
they dug up the barbecue, and a smell of meat and hot earth spread over the patio in a thin curtain of smoke that enveloped them all like the fog that drifts before a murder, and vanished mysteriously as the women carried the plates to the table, leaving clothing and skin impregnated with its aroma.
“So who’s guilty?” asked Pelletier. “There are people who’ve been in prison a long time, but women keep dying,” said one of the boys.
When I opened the glass door I felt something strange, as if everything I saw or felt from that moment on would determine the course of my life to come.
Two years after she sent this last letter, seven years after she’d abandoned Amalfitano and her daughter, Lola came home and found them gone.
literature does have a future, believe it or not, and so does history
At that same moment the Santa Teresa police found the body of another teenage girl, half buried in a vacant lot in one of the neighborhoods on the edge of the city, and a strong wind from the west hurled itself against the slope of the mountains to the east, raising dust and a litter of newspaper and cardboard on its way through Santa Teresa
Spring, Admapu law ordered that children should be conceived in summer, when all fruits were ripe; thus they would be born in spring when the land awakens in the fullness of its strength; when all the animals and birds are born.
She looks like a nun, thought Quincy, or like she belongs to a dangerous cult.
during the long years in prison we’d forgotten what we knew and we’d learned nothing, nothing but cruelty from the guards and sadism from our fellow inmates.
Reading is like thinking, like praying, like talking to a friend, like expressing your ideas, like listening to other people’s ideas, like listening to music (oh yes), like looking at the view, like taking a walk on the beach.
“And how are they killed?” asked Fate. “Nobody’s sure. They disappear. They vanish into thin air, here one minute, gone the next. And after a while their bodies turn up in the desert.”
“They’re good people, friendly, hospitable. Mexicans are hardworking, they’re hugely curious about everything, they care about people, they’re brave and generous, their sadness isn’t destructive, it’s life giving,” said Rosa Amalfitano as they crossed the border into the United States.
You have to listen to women. You should never ignore a woman’s fears. It was something like that, remembered Fate, that his mother or her neighbor, the deceased Miss Holly, used to say when both of them were young and he was a boy.
No one pays attention to these killings, but the secret of the world is hidden in them.
For a while, as he swept, the priest talked and talked: about the city, about the trickle of Central American immigrants, about the hundreds of Mexicans who arrived each day in search of work at the maquiladoras or hoping to cross the border, about the human trafficking by polleros and coyotes, about the starvation wages paid at the factories, about how those wages were still coveted by the desperate who arrived from Querétaro or Zacatecas or Oaxaca, desperate Christians, said the priest (which was an odd way to describe them, especially for a priest), who embarked on the most incredible journeys, sometimes alone and sometimes with their families in tow, until they reached the border and only then did they rest or cry or pray or get drunk or get high or dance until they fell down exhausted.
Well, this posole isn’t quite the same as the original posole, said Epifanio. It’s missing an ingredient. What ingredient is that? asked Lalo Cura. Human flesh, said Epifanio. Don’t fu(k with me, said Lalo Cura. It’s true, the Aztecs cooked posole with pieces of human flesh, said Epifanio. I don’t believe it, said Lalo Cura.
Then his mother stared at him with her blue eye and the boy held her gaze with his two blue eyes, and from the corner near the hearth, the one-legged man watched them both with his two blue eyes and for three or four seconds the island of Prussia seemed to rise from the depths.
When the bombers have finished pounding the designated piece of earth, not a single bird can be heard. In fact, not even in the neighboring areas where no bomb has fallen, to either side of the devastated divisions, does a single bird cry.
They rented a room from a man who kept a dairy and lived alone, because he had lost his two sons during the war, one in Russia and the other in Hungary, and his wife had died of sorrow, or so he said, although according to the villagers the man had pushed her into a ravine.
For a while she thought about becoming a vegetarian. Instead, she took up smoking.
We decided to hike a bit more on an unnamed trail above the lake that appears to take you to the ridge that climbs to Fraser Mountain and Wheeler Peak. We didn’t have time today to make it to the ridge, but we saw a couple of ponds on the map that were about halfway up to the ridge. So, we climbed another 500 feet in about a mile to look for the ponds. Unfortunately, they were off the trail and there were too many downed trees to navigate, so we decided to save this for another time. But this trail above the lake is beautiful. You get some glances at the high ridges above, plus the ground is soft and the area is plush with plant life; a nice change from the old jeep road we used to reach the lake. One day I will hike up to either Fraser Mountain or Wheeler Peak from here. No animals today, not even chipmunks! I guess they’re all preparing for winter. But it was a beautiful day in the mountains with my daughter, so what more can you ask?
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| "Tall pines are pointing us easily to heaven above" |
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| Middle Fork of the Red River |
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| ...some of it frozen over |
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| Ethereal forest scene |
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| Middle Fork Lake partially frozen |
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| Middle Fork Lake |
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| Dogs enjoying the lake |
This collection of crazy stories was a finalist of the 2018 Story Prize, an award for short story writing. Tom Waits would LOVE this collection. His songs tell the story of people on the edges of civilization, people down on their luck, living in difficult conditions. If anyone ever makes a series based on these short stories, Tom Waits will have to provide the soundtrack. In addition to the hot mess teacher and obsessed Chinese man that I already mentioned, there is a down on his luck aspiring actor living in a boarding house, a man who works in a boarding house for disabled adults, a middle class teacher who spends her summers in a cheap home she bought in a drug addled part of down where she becomes part of that community for a time, an incredible story of a couple whose trip to a vacation island exposes the seedy side of those resorts, and then there’s the twin brother and sister raised by their mother whom they call “the woman” and their desire to leave this earth and go back to where they came from. Craziness abounds in this collection of stories containing all these characters that were somehow developed in the mind of this really great writer. I'll have put her four novels on my list of books to read. Here are some lines:
Every year, the kids had to take a big exam that let the state know just how bad I was at doing my job.
I passed out the tests, had them break the seals, showed them how to fill in the bubbles properly with the right pencils, told them, “Try your best,” and then I took the tests home and switched all their answers. No way those dummies would cost me my job.
“I have to pick up a package at the post office.” He made it sound like he was going on a secret mission, like what he had to do was so difficult, so perilous, required so much strength of character, he needed my support. He slid the pick-up slip from the postman across the counter as proof.
I heard him in the bathroom screaming into a towel. I wondered who had taught him how to do that. I was slightly impressed.
He always hid his shame and self-loathing under an expression of shame and self-loathing,
I retreated to the cabin that weekend in early spring after a fight with my wife. She was pregnant at the time, and I suppose she felt entitled to treat me terribly. So I went up there to spite her, yes, and in hopes that she would come to appreciate me in my absence, but also to have one last weekend to myself before the baby was born and my life as I’d known it was forever ruined.
My poor wife. I didn’t know how little I loved her until she was dead.
Their “wifebeater” tops left very little to the imagination. I tried to hide my concern, but it was impossible. Hooters was no place for good people
He was materialistic, like my wife. How many blouses and bracelets does a woman need? How many terrible framed watercolors, throw pillows, little silver things shaped like birds or cats, or ceramic hearts filled with potpourri, or crystal ashtrays does a human being require?
sometimes I visited the deluxe shopping center on Route 4, where the fattest people on Earth could be found buzzing around in electronic wheelchairs, trailing huge carts full of hamburger meat and cake mix and jugs of vegetable oil and pillow-size bags of chips.
Riverside Road and Main Street, where the vagrant townsfolk dressed like zombies and kept wolf dogs on rope leashes. The town was rife with meth and heroin.
She was probably around my age, but she looked like a woman with a hundred years of suffering behind her
My mother was a terror. She beat me black and blue, made me chew on bars of soap any time I mouthed off. She forced me to walk miles in the rain to get her plums from a tree, then beat me because they were full of worms. And yet I mourn her passing. I’m a grown woman, and still I cry. You only have one mother. Mine got starved to death and thrown in a trench full of rotting corpses. You are lucky yours is still living. If I were a Christian I would cross myself. Now go call her. You know she loves you.”
He was intense and perturbed and smelled like motor oil and vomit, which is what drew me to him.
I find a sharp butcher knife in the drawer and take it to my room and hide it in my satchel. I kick at the walls for a while. Then I start off for the library to find the fat sister of the man I am going to kill.
A meadlowlark comes and taps its beak on the glass and hovers. Then another comes and flies right into the glass and breaks its neck. Its body falls to the ground. The first meadlowlark flies away. This seems like a good omen.
I hold my arms behind my back, and with the butcher knife in one hand, the jar of poison jam in the other, I kick on Jarek Jaskolka’s door. Waldemar cries and hides against the wall of the house, holding the dead meadlowlark in his hands. He pinches his eyes closed. “I’ll miss you, Waldemar!” I whisper. I wait for the bad man to let me in.
During my exploration I ran into a couple of mountain bikers who had navigated several trails all the way from Pinewood Springs to Deadman Gulch. That must have been fun planning that one. I fully expected to see them passing me at the base of Coffintop once they explored the top of Deadman Gulch. They weren’t gonna bike down that steep trail where they? They did. I saw their tire marks. I searched for their bodies, but I guess they made it down alive. I don’t know how. Mountain bikers are crazy.
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| Sun coloring the cliffs |
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| Meadow view lunch spot |
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| Meadow between Deadman Gulch peak and Coffintop connector |
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| Views east from the top of Deadman Gulch |
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| Lots of rock formations up here |
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| Trail art |
I thought a lot about the work I do advocating for action on climate change and some of the scenes in this book. It's set in the fairly near future, mid 2050s maybe, but with lots "historical" events from 2025 (when the Ministry for the Future is established) up through the 2050s. Because the world hasn't moved fast enough on climate change, tragedy strikes in the form of killer heat waves and floods. Some fringe groups realize that change won't happen unless drastic action is taken. So events start occurring that force the world's hand on action. Events like drone attacks on fuel powered planes and ships, and assassinations of oligarchs and billionaires. The world is forced to change, but it doesn't come easy with the various political and cultural differences. I personally worry that climate activists in the near future will take drastic actions like this unless changes occur soon. We already see defacing of art pieces and buildings, and one person even self immolated for this cause, but could it get worse? Maybe. I hope not. Currently the only killing being done is perpetrated on climate activists and journalists around the world by greedy barons continuing to exploit the land for profits, but it's not a far stretch to see the opposite occurring. If you study the science of climate change there are tipping points that, if achieved, could result in tragedy for millions of those living now and those in the future (ocean acidification, melting icebergs, shifting ocean currents, permafrost melting). If you believe that, then wouldn't you try to do all you can to prevent it? I'm trying all I can, within reason, but I really do sometimes feel that it's not enough, especially dealing with the current anti-science administration in the United States.
Like all great science fiction this novel makes you think a lot while being thoroughly entertained. Here are some lines:
They were all sweating, except for some who weren’t, who were redder than the rest, incandescent in
the shadows of the late afternoon. As twilight fell they propped these people up and helped them to die...There was no coolness to be had. All the children were dead, all the old people were dead.
For a while, therefore, it looked like the great heat wave would be like mass shootings in the United
States—mourned by all, deplored by all, and then immediately forgotten or superseded by the next one,
until they came in a daily drumbeat and became the new normal.
Ideology, n. An imaginary relationship to a real situation. In common usage, what the other person has,
especially when systematically distorting the facts.
there is enough for all. So there should be no more people living in
poverty. And there should be no more billionaires. Enough should be a human right, a floor below
which no one can fall; also a ceiling above which no one can rise. Enough is as good as a feast—or better.
They
wrecked the world happily, thinking they were supermen, laughing at the weak, crushing them
underfoot.
her youth had taught her some hard lessons, as well as given her a pretty high tolerance for alcohol.
I can’t tell you everything. Because look: there might be some people who deserve to be killed.
Arctic permafrost contained as much stored methane as all the Earth’s cattle would create and emit over
six centuries
tragedy of the time horizon. Meaning we can’t imagine the suffering of the people of the future, so
nothing much gets done on their behalf.
he ran across one essay that said the people of the world could still be divided into roughly three groups
of wealth and consumption, measured by their transport methods. A third of the world traveled by car
and jet, a third by train and bicycle; the final third was still on foot.
The bankers were useless. They would look at each other and see the mutual lack of enthusiasm in their
peers, and hide behind that. If the world cooked and civilization fell apart, it wouldn’t be their fault,
even though they were funding the disaster every step of the way.
As Germany’s
economy was about twice the size of France’s, what people around Europe took all this to mean was that
Germany had finally conquered them all, no matter what it had looked like at the end of World War
Two.
mad cow disease, bovine spongiform
encephalopathy, had been cultured and introduced by drone dart into millions of cattle all over the
world... So to stay safe, people needed to stop eating beef now.
But they were also paying very close attention to her; they were transfixed,
the storm outside forgotten. Now the storm was in the room, in the form of one angry intense middle-aged woman.
The Götterdämmerung Syndrome, as with most violent pathologies, is more often seen in men than
women. It is often interpreted as an example of narcissistic rage. Those who feel it are usually privileged
and entitled, and they become extremely angry when their privileges and sense of entitlement are being
taken away. If then their choice gets reduced to admitting they are in error or destroying the world, a
reduction they often feel to be the case, the obvious choice for them is to destroy the world; for they
cannot admit they have ever erred.
In the early 1950s, a time when many people felt that wealthy individuals had helped to cause and then
profit from World War Two, the top tax bracket in the United States had earners paying in income tax
91 percent of all earnings over $400,000 (current value, four million dollars). This rate was approved by
a Republican Congress and a Republican president, Dwight D. Eisenhower, a man who had commanded
the Allied forces in the war, and had seen the death and destruction first hand, including the
concentration camps....Later these top rates were lowered, over and over, until in the neoliberal period top rates were more like
20 or 30 percent. In those decades the tax loopholes and dodges and deferments and havens also grew
hugely, so these already low percentages are actually inflated compared to the real amounts collected.
Income taxes thus were made much less progressive; this was a feature of the neoliberal period, part of
the larger campaign favoring private over public, rich over poor.
Say the internet stops working, your savings suddenly vanish and money doesn’t work anymore: Can you make up a new society from scratch at that point? No, you can’t. Things
just fall apart and next thing you know you’re eating your cat.
This bridge has the highest murder rate of any bridge in the world. And so you picked it as our meeting
place? I wanted to remind you. I wanted you to feel it. Tatiana heaved in a cold breath, feeling depressed.
Mother Russia,
After several years of container ships being sunk on a regular basis, taken out by drone torpedoes of
ever-increasing speed and power, the shipping industry had finally begun adapting to the new
situation. It was adapt or die; Electric motors replaced diesel engines
Until next time, happy reading and rambling!