Tarpon Spring Sponge Docks
A Map or Chart of the Road of Love, and Harbour of Marriage - Thomas Sayer - 1748
A New Map of the Land of Matrimony, Drawn From the Latest Surveys - Anna Laetitia Barbauld - 1772
Geographical Guide to a Man’s Heart, Geographical Guide to a Woman’s Heart - Jo Lowery - 1960
Happy Valentine’s Day
Wednesday, February 12, 2025 →
Ursula Franklin is my homegirl, for Josh Brake.
Get yours at Stickermule.
Ted Balaker re-ran my college advice on his blog. Welcome to y’all who’re arriving via Ted! 👋
I’m editing a book of King family history, and @ayjay’s Breaking Bread With The Dead has been a welcome companion. It’s yielded a few quotes that may find their way to the top of a chapter:
LP Hartley in The Go-Between:
The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.
William Faulkner in Requiem for a Nun:
The past is never dead; it’s not even past.
Francis Spufford in The Child That Books Built:
Usually Americans focus on the future, and kick yesterday impatiently out of tomorrow’s path. On the prairie, on the other hand, people shrewdly suspected that the past had survival value, and they were, to boot, stubborn. You had to be stubborn to stay. You had to be stubborn to go on making the farmer’s bet against drought and deluge every year… You keep the past connected to the present, and to the future, by keeping your promises.
Meet Joseph Ducreux, diplomat-turned-meme-lord.
If you’ve spent time on the internet, you’ve seen his “Self-Portrait of the Artist in the Guise of a Mocker:”
But I bet you haven’t seen his other oddball gems:
“The Silence”
“Self-Portrait, Yawning”
and my fave, “The Surprise in Terror”
Wendell Berry, in Life is a Miracle: An Essay Against Modern Superstition:
It is easy for me to imagine that the next great division of the world will be between people who wish to live as creatures and people who wish to live as machines.
Berry, who’s 90 now, wrote this almost two and a half decades ago. He no longer needs to imagine this great division; we’re living it.
“I need a logo for my website!” WRONG.
“I found him beneath a tree” from William Blake’s The Gates of Paradise
When possible, refer all matters to committees, for “further study and consideration.” Attempt to make the committees as large as possible — never less than five.
from Simple Sabotage, a now-declassified CIA field manual:
On Choosing A College
Thursday, January 23, 2025
I was invited to be part of a panel about college choices at my alma mater. Not knowing how much time I’d have to share, I decided to write up my thoughts. I’ve got strong opinions about this. Why should you care what I think? I’ve plowed a lot of ground with my chin. Twenty one years ago, I was the valedictorian of my class, with an almost-perfect SAT score. I basically had my pick of schools.
Johnson Creek Marsh, by Jay Fleming. I licensed it for use in my cover design for the Mudbound Books edition of Tales of the Chesapeake.
🌱 Season/Change
Thursday, March 28, 2024
This will be a short one, and the last one until I get the itch to write it again. Perhaps it seems strange... but I felt the need to shrink my prospects, narrow my horizons, and move on to smaller endeavors. --Tom Horton in An Island Out Of Time Last June, Joanna and I moved from Baltimore to Westover, the southeastern corner of Maryland where she and I grew up. We moved for a quieter life and to be closer to our family while we raise our girls.
💥 Explosion-Powered Chariots
Sunday, January 1, 2023
It's 2023. Bit by bit, the days are getting longer again. Welcome to winter's issue of This Mortal Portal, and Happy New Year! I've been living, even more than usual, in the land of poetry. The third volume of HUM poems is so close to ready that I dragged my feet sending this newsletter, hoping to include the buy link. [Update: it's now live.] I'm the editor of the series, and I feel a kind of fatherly pride about it.
🪓 Lifehacked To Bits
Friday, September 30, 2022
It’s the eighth day of fall, and the eighth quarterly issue of This Mortal Portal. I didn’t write a summer newsletter; I was still in turmoil after my friend Dave's death, and I didn't have the energy to write something real. So I skipped it rather than forcing it. Now I’m back, with: A microessay/rant about lifehacks Vic's Picks are back! For the Record Plus a 90's GIF and a cartoon.
⌛️ 1,825 Weeks
Friday, March 25, 2022
Welcome to the sixth day of spring, and the seventh quarterly issue of This Mortal Portal. It’s a shorter one. -V 1,825 WeeksThis week I’m grieving my friend. Back at the start of this newsletter, I promised life updates in the good times and the hard. This week has been one of the hard times. I learned Monday morning that my friend of seven years and colleague of five, David Pope, had died.
🌊 Do You Haiku?
Wednesday, December 22, 2021
Welcome to the sixth quarterly issue of This Mortal Portal, coming to you on the second day of winter. A microessay feat. original poems (!) Vic's Picks (fall faves) For the Record (things done) Plus an apple-jugglin’ GIF and a strange cartoon. Merry Christmas and happy holi-days to you and yours! -V Do You Haiku?Or There’s Something About Poetry“Chap Vic,” he says to me, “you got an MP3 player I could hold to get me through blackout?
🌎 Stay here on earth with me
Thursday, September 23, 2021
Welcome to the second day of autumn, and the fourth quarterly issue of This Mortal Portal. It includes: A short story based on true stories of people with suicidal thoughts Vic's Picks For the Record Plus the perfect summer GIF and a Calvin and Hobbes cartoon. -V (I switched to a new email provider, btw.) Stay Here On Earth With MeThis story is a composite of many true stories that I've been a part of in my work as a chaplain.