Category: Encounters With Great Beings

  • The Bear, the Man, and Blueberry Manna (a fable)

    Telluride Daily Planet, Sunday, May 17, 2015   Once upon a time, in a forest just beyond the deepest of the deep lakes, lived an old man named Florentine and a black bear with cataracts in his eyes. This is the story of how Florentine came to save Alonzo the bear, save him from all the…

  • Gum chain

    Telluride Daily Planet, Sunday, March 1, 2015 If you Google “guy who lived in the Alaskan wilderness for 30 years,” Dick Proenneke’s name and website will pop up and you’ll go, “That’s him!” And then you’ll see the name of the video and you’ll go check it out again from the library and you’ll watch it…

  • Between rooms 3 and 4

    Telluride Daily Planet, Sunday, December 7, 2014 Dear Mr. Security Guard at MOMA, I really don’t know how you do it, standing in a doorway between two rooms as the hordes mill by, firing off their three questions — Can I take a picture, Where are the restrooms, and Which way to the Matisse cutouts. Sometimes…

  • Peabody, here

    Telluride Daily Planet, Sunday, August 3, 2014 We’re in the staff cafeteria (Enders Hall) of the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory in the ghost town of Gothic right outside Crested Butte where we are having lunch. Beef brisket sandwiches with barbecue sauce, a substantial salad bar, and, astonishingly, fresh cream puffs filled with chocolate crème patissière for…

  • Transcribed from the original…

    Telluride Daily Planet, Sunday, December 15, 2013 Transcribed from the original letter, dated December 13, 2013. Dear Michelle, True, true, I don’t generally reply to letters. And I’ll admit it was the missus who suggested I make an exception – not because you’re particularly needy, or worthy, or unique, my dear, but because I know…

  • First snowflake (the 99-year interview)

    Telluride Daily Planet, Sunday, September 29, 2013 The sky is blue again, bluebird-blue, and the post-summer sun, more than ever committed to its last deeply golden moments, streams down in gushing rays, skipping across exposed human shoulders. There is no intention to burn a tissue layer off the most fledgling of earthly inhabitants, but sun’s…