Walking Commentary
Thoughts and cycling from Manchester to Rome in 2023
‘Follow the cartouche!’ is not what you’d expect native American trackers to say but it’s one trick that The Shadow Wolves can use to find people who have crossed into Arizona from Mexico. It seems that our shoe brands in soft soils or sands are as useful as a wall for immigration control.
‘It was in a cave near there that De Selby encountered St Augustine and surrealistic visions of eternity.’ or so I wrote last October of a cave in a cove where naturists liked to hang out. I’m not contending that De Selby or St Augustine were advocates let alone dedicated to meeting au naturel but far stranger things happened in The Dalkey Archive. By the way, the naturists I often encountered while walking the dog have recently moved around the head to the Vico Bathing place. In case you were curious.
We turned on the TV this morning to hear that the Suez Canal backlog was cleared. After paying the normal $500,000 transit fee per ship, the 400 or so delayed vessels are all plying their trade again. And there, to illustrate the news story, was an aircraft carrier. The USS Dwight D. Eisenhower had also passed through the canal. And typing 400 reminds me that this is journal 400.
Frank Mitchell was the Professor of Quaternary Studies when I was a geology student in Trinity College, Dublin. When he retired in 1979, I was already overseas, working in Sharjah. A few job changes and a dozen years later, I was back in Ireland so to speak. In fact, I was commuting to work overseas and never found employment in Ireland in the coming thirty years.
Have you ever heard of Robert Gregg of Colorado? He’s connected to the eighth wonder of the world, in St Petersburg, in my mind at least.
Gregg died in 1991, famous among ant lovers for having written the seminal book The Ants of Colorado published in 1963. He identified and was allowed name many ant species in Colorado during his decades of searching them out.
Yesterday was the last day of my month of magnolias. Lucky that because today, the gusts, hail and sleet are doing their best to knock the tepals to the ground. So I spent the day indoors, desk bound while preparing the next chapbook.
And then I finished reading Mary Robison’sWhy Did I Ever? I don’t read much fiction but if I did, I’d want it to be as refreshing as this. It was an experience rather than a story. I engaged with it from page one, became immersed and was held in thrall to the last page.
