David Walbert: Unhewn Stones

Thu, 07 May 2026 10:36:46 -0400

Seen from afterward the time appears to have been
all of a piece which of course it was but how seldom
it seemed that way when it was still happening

—W. S. Merwin

Thu, 30 Apr 2026 15:16:46 -0400

Yesterday seemed like another day of drought-clouds that promised without delivering, but near midnight thunder rolled and a quick storm brought half an inch of rain, after an inch this weekend. It’s a long way back to normal, but hopefully we’re making a start.

Mon, 27 Apr 2026 20:29:45 -0400

Is it too early to start printing “No More Mr. NICE Guy” t-shirts?

Sat, 25 Apr 2026 19:48:36 -0400

I remembered this week that one need not bother with shaker and cocktail glass to enjoy a martini: a rocks glass and a few ice cubes will do, granted the proper gin and a good vermouth. It may not, all things considered, be a good thing that I remembered this, but for the time being I’m enjoying it.

Fri, 24 Apr 2026 11:54:33 -0400

Spring here is not spring as we know it: the cool, wet promise of snowmelt and frozen ground yielding into mud. Here, a sudden heat falls out of the sky one day, and one breathes and moves as if deposited inside a kettle of soup. In response, vegetation shoots out of the ground with irresistible force. Just when the body wishes to slow down and give way to lassitude, it must instead accelerate, for the challenge is to keep human labor on a pace with the work of Nature, or else by overrun by the excesses of her abundance.

—Geraldine Brooks, in March. About as good a description of a Southern spring (for someone still instinctively thinking of the North) as I have read.

Fri, 17 Apr 2026 19:19:31 -0400

L. M. Sacasas:

Discussions around the human in relation to technology, specifically AI, parallel older debates about science and religion. In that discursive context, there was a form of argument known as “God of the gaps.” The idea was that God was simply a name for the gaps in our scientific understanding of the world. Of course, once those gaps were filled, God would be effectively squeezed out of the metaphysical picture. Similarly, we are operating with a “human of the gaps” model when we try to locate the essence of the human creature by pointing to what cannot yet be accomplished by a machine, whether these be matters of physical prowess, cognitive ability, or creativity. Such an approach to the human is misguided, just as it was when it was applied to God.

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 19:06:17 -0400

Salad days

Tue, 14 Apr 2026 17:06:27 -0400

Came home this afternoon to find the local five-foot black rat snake (whom I call Ermengarde) sunning herself on the front steps digesting a chipmunk-sized bulge. I always like seeing Ermengarde, but she is less excited to see me, so we kept it brief. (Maybe you’ve had relationships like that.)

Tue, 14 Apr 2026 14:38:12 -0400

All right, back to our regularly scheduled programming. Here’s a go at some butterflies.

Tue, 14 Apr 2026 09:40:08 -0400

Matthew Walther:

“Blasphemy” is not a phrase we are used to seeing in print these days even in magazines like this one. When it does appear, it is usually in a non-literal sense, meaning something like “insouciance.” But blasphemy is not a mere casual lack of concern for sacred things; it is their willful profanation.

If the image posted on Trump’s TruthSocial account on Sunday evening… is not blasphemous, the word has no meaning.

Walther’s rare hot takes always manage to be both cogent essays and barn-burners, but I’m going to push back, gently, and say that if one accepts his definition of blasphemy, then Trump is likely off the hook, because I see no evidence that the man has a concept of “sacred things” to be profaned. Nor do most Americans, so far as I can tell, for whom “church” and “Christianity” are lifestyle options of no more real consequence than musical tastes or sports fandom. Jesus is a brand with which Trump has identified himself, nothing more.

However.

Theologians have overplayed the idea that everybody “worships” the thing to which they devote their attention—Taylor Swift fans do not actually pray to her, nor hope for her blessing and protection. But the one idol Americans might be said truly to worship, in form and practice, is America itself: not the ideal form espoused in the Declaration of Independence and the Gettysburg Address but the image of national power that has taken shape since the Civil War and, especially, since World War II. The Pledge of Allegiance is nothing if not a prayer. The national anthem is nothing if not a hymn. (Hand on heart, gazing at the flag? And they say Protestants don’t do physical worship.) That is the real idol with which Trump wants to identify himself: the personification of American power, with doves and angels replaced by fighter planes and bombers. And I am very much afraid that American Christians have entirely paved the road he now treads. The blasphemy and the idolatry are not new, and not his: he’s only singing a song he heard on the radio. If you were shocked by his little AI gag, my friends, you simply have not been paying attention.

Sat, 11 Apr 2026 19:00:48 -0400

Man. Now lay we mortal flesh upon the fire,
And, raising toothsome searings to our nostrils,
Bring us pleasure.
Dog. My jowls are all a-water!
Man. Sit thee on thy haunches, knave, and wait!
Sweet morsels will I grant a trusty servant.

Fri, 10 Apr 2026 17:12:33 -0400

Currently reading: the new Library of America volume of John McPhee books (early evenings); a paperback P. G. Wodehouse collection I picked up this week at a used bookstore (on the nightstand); and David Kline’s The Round of a Country Year (a little at a time, in the morning).

Mon, 06 Apr 2026 16:51:20 -0400

Field madder, another tiny flower I’d never noticed before—or mistook for bluets from walking eye level. Apparently native to Europe, North Africa, and West and Central Asia, but naturalized here. (“Here” very specifically being along the edge of a mini-park.)

Mon, 06 Apr 2026 16:43:37 -0400

Ground ivy, which I had never noticed before. (I would say “never seen” but that probably isn’t true.) Lovely flowers that my phone refused to focus on even in macro mode, but you get the idea.

Tue, 31 Mar 2026 12:52:42 -0400

Ten reasons not to use a tool

Tue, 31 Mar 2026 08:54:24 -0400

Mary Harrington on scrolling as the return of Charles Taylor’s unbuffered self:

[W]e should also pause for a moment on how post-print selves are now formed, in practice. Specifically: as selves are growing less buffered, many are embracing this new state of affairs with remarkably little discrimination on how external influences may contribute to the formation of mental habits…. [A]nyone who simply absorbs whatever the scroll throws up, without discernment, will end up being formed by discourses often optimised less for truth, or wisdom, or human flourishing, than for maximum immediacy in playing on intense emotions, good or bad.

On occasions I have an eerie sense that thought has me, rather than I the thought — only to realise that this is true, because the thought is a mental groove worn in my inner reflections by a specific online discourse. When you meet this in someone else, it comes across as that person treating everything they encounter as a data point for their epistemic tribe, whether that’s “gender discourse”, or Palestine, or whatever. I’ve come to think of such individuals as partially or wholly occupied by a kind of collective self, formed and consolidated by a hybrid human/machine dynamic.

This isn’t entirely new; television got us partway there decades ago. But Taylor’s buffered and unbuffered selves is a useful model, or hook. To riff on this observation: People who traditionally were unreflective about the external forces that created their selves were formed by local nature and community, and taught to be wary of evil spirits. Then came reading, and readers know and (can, should) reflect on what they’re reading, weigh it as something external to themselves, and are apt to remember their influences. Scrolling on the internet (let’s please stop calling it social media, ok? nothing social about it) has undone that awareness and reflection, without putting humans back in the context of local nature and community: so that everyone is babes in the woods, but babes who think themselves learned and wise.

Now ask yourself whether “democracy” is possible in such a condition, or what used to be called civil society. Both require selves that can be argued with, and we’re erasing them.

Tue, 31 Mar 2026 08:41:46 -0400

Finished reading: The Matter with Things Our Brains, Our Delusions, and the Unmaking of the World by Iain McGilchrist 📚

Those who have said that this is one of the most important books of the past (n) years are not exaggerating.

Sat, 28 Mar 2026 16:45:12 -0400

I didn’t do it, but I’m filing the idea away in case I ever turn to a life of crime.

To make scrapple at home

Tue, 24 Mar 2026 19:30:32 -0400

As promised, here is my recipe for scrapple, which I cobbled together for a home kitchen. It doesn’t require a hog’s head and is manageable in an ordinary stockpot.

Simmer 4 pounds of pork neck bones in water to cover for four hours or until falling-off-the-bone tender. Strain the broth, reserving both liquid and solids. Pick the meat and fat from the bones and chop very finely, discarding any gristle. You should have 10 cups of strained broth and 2½ cups meat.

Bring the stock to a boil. Gradually whisk in 2½ cups fine cornmeal (or “stone ground” — not coarse) and 1½ cups buckwheat flour. To avoid lumps, continue stirring until the pudding gelatinizes and starts to thicken. Then stir in the meat along with:

1 tablespoon salt
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 teaspoon dried sage
½ teaspoon dried thyme (or 1 teaspoon pounded and sifted)
½ teaspoon mace
½ teaspoon ground/grated nutmeg
dash cayenne

Simmer ½ hour, stirring frequently to avoid sticking.

Pour into greased molds and cool. I use three 9x5 loaf pans lined with wax paper, then when cool, turn out the loaves, cut into thirds, and freeze them on baking sheets before transferring to freezer bags for storage.

To serve, slice cold scrapple thickly and fry in a pan. I recommend apple butter as an accompaniment (not ketchup).

Fri, 20 Mar 2026 10:00:12 -0400

An update on the cowbird situation

Fri, 20 Mar 2026 08:54:29 -0400

If you’re looking for some music to welcome in the new year, may I suggest “Spring” from Ailbhe McDonagh’s Irish Seasons? I love the whole work, but that’s (obviously) the place to start.

Fri, 20 Mar 2026 08:53:11 -0400

Six carved panels in a reclaimed window — a work for spring, that also represents the Annunciation. (More birds singing Bach. My birds always sing Bach.)

Fri, 20 Mar 2026 06:37:19 -0500

You’re going to get AI whether you like it or not, because that’s where the money is.

Tue, 17 Mar 2026 10:31:06 -0500

In which I am elected an honorary cowbird

Fri, 13 Mar 2026 12:42:45 -0500

Made a soup for lunch involving yellow-eye beans and butternut squash with fresh thyme, rosemary, and olive oil and I really cannot decide whether I like it. I think it’s growing on me. If this sounds good to you feel free to stop by, I have plenty.