"For the longest time I have felt a little like a polar bear at a road-side zoo -- pretty sure there must be others like me, but without much evidence of that reality. Now I see there are others out there with a similar bend in the brain -- not a lot of us, but more than one, and that's a pretty thrilling thing on this end.
"I know some professional environmental types, but I have to say most seem to know almost nothing about critters -- it's either an academic excercise or a romantic thing, or a legal construct (lots of lawyers!) or else it's just the fear-mongering tribe they chose out of college. For whatever reason, there is often not much real connection to things that snap or go squish under foot, or that fly up or bite back in the hedge. A dissapointment."
Finding this blog prompted Patrick to order a few Bodio titles, the first of which (On The Edge of The Wild) arrived recently. The "first nine pages" earn this praise:
"It's depressing to find smart sons of bitches who can really write and actually have something to say, 'cause basically you know you will never be able to keep up or say it half as well. On the other hand, it's exhilirating too -- new ideas and turns of the phrase that just pop in your brain. I feel like an apartment dog taking his first long walk though a zoo. Pretty grand this place!
"...It's more than the fact that Steve says it all very well (smooth, smooth); it's that he has something to say that really needs to be said and (as far as I know) has not been said before. I think it must help to be from the East and have gone West and stayed and really paid attention -- it is an expatriant journey every bit as clarifying as what deToqueville did (and certainly just as far geographically). It is an old observation that to write best about Somewhere it helps to be from Elsewhere -- Hemingway in Idaho and Florida writing about Paris, etc.
"Anyway, it is at some level depressing and inspiring to read something this well put together . Writing this good reminds me that done properly writing is more than typing -- it is craft."
1 comment:
Welcome, Patrick!
Your own prose is worthy of praise, sir. Keep up the great work. We love your site.
A small world it is indeed; you have worked with folks in DC who we worked with out West, too (Ken Rait? he cut his teeth - or more properly, broke them, on a nasty development issue here in the late 80s over Rocking K Ranch, which we also worked on). I also worked a bit with the Republicans for Environmental Protection folks - they tried to get me to start an Arizona chapter, though at the time, and now, we're just too busy.
So we really enjoy your blog; and the thought of all those wonderful Jack Russells terrorizing (pun there?) the suburban Virginia and Maryland warms our hearts.
Post a Comment