October 28, 2009 - 7:00pm - Mathewson-IGT Knowledge Center, Wells Fargo Auditorium
The Psychoscope: a sensational drama in five acts by R.M. Daggett and J.T. Goodman (1871)
 Written and first performed in Virginia City in 1872, The Psychoscope is notable for its futuristic science fiction elements, including its namesake invention which anticipates the development of the lie [...]

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Saturday is closing day here at the 2008 High Plains Chautauqua in Greeley, Colorado (at left). I’ve been here all week in my 19th-century suit, top hat, white wig and beard as Horace himself, the first US presidential candidate to travel widely and campaign on his own behalf. “The choice between [incumbent president] Grant and Greeley is [...]

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On July 22nd, my friend Koldo wrote:
Our city has changed in summer. It’s a different town that you known in winter and spring. Then, it was quieter but now it’s crowded. Last week, on Monday, came Tom Waits, a very famous rocker, and played in the Kursaal Auditorium, and the next day, on Tuesday, none [...]

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Just got back from the Sierra Storytelling Festival in North Columbia, California. It was a nice way to spend most of a smoky summer weekend, at a wooden Greek amphitheatre deep in an old-growth cedar grove next to an 1875 schoolhouse on the edge of the South Yuba River canyon. The featured storytellers represented more cultures than human [...]

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(Using green power to plant a truck garden in Orio, a few miles west of San Sebastián along the coastal road) 
In a few hours I’ll be meeting with my colleague Peg’s daughter Meg (that’s right — Peg and Meg). Meg, her husband Paul and their young son Ethan are spending a week in San Sebastián later this [...]

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As the smoke from hundreds of California wildfires mutes our Sierra sunshine into a melancholy and slightly apocalyptic light, I think more and more of the Basque Country and its cool, windy, wet weather. Amy captured it perfectly one mid-May day, looking westward along the Gipuzcoan coastline from my favorite perch above the town of Zumaia.

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Tucson, Arizona. Down here the Wildcats enjoy one of the most vibrant university-city neighborhoods I’ve ever seen, with three separate residential districts on the National Register of Historic Places and more bookstores, cafes, restaurants and state-of-the-art retail joints than you can shake a saguaro at. I’ve always wished for something similar around UNR, but the pickings [...]

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Apologies if you’ve been checking back looking for a new post. I’ve been busy re-entering. But perhaps I delude myself …

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As I pack my bags to leave this beautiful place, I want to thank two local residents who have made me feel something like a genuine dyed-in-the-wool donostiarra.

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Rails to Trails is what we call them in the States, and there’s even an organization dedicated to converting old railroad right-of-ways into cycling and hiking paths. Here in the Basque Country they’re called vias verdes, or “greenways,” and the Ardituri path is the best one I’ve found so far. 

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