Linkage into the Wild

Other linkage:

¶ Alaska writer Craig Medred proposes some cures for "bus madness," in other words, the pilgrims and wannabes who turn the abandoned bus where Chris "Supertramp" McCandless died into a destination — and who often have to be rescued at public expense.

A sample:

Ransom the Bus: Americans, or at least some of them, seem to think there’s something mythical, mystical, magic, marvelous, mad or some other m-word about visiting a bus where some poor, foolish young man sadly starved to death. Let them pay to keep their shrine out there. Put out a press release warning that the cash-strapped state of Alaska cannot afford further rescues, and unless people contribute $500,000 this year to save the bus it will be blown up as public nuisance. Let America start a GoFundTheBus campaign.

¶ A new cultural history of the Great Plains for that mythical creature, the general reader: Great Plains Indians by historical geographer David Wishart. It's part of a new series from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, "Discover the Great Plains."

¶ A retrospective of setter and pointer dogs in advertising art. That is not two different appreviations for "Colorado," but rather Delta County and the town of Cedaredge.

The Lost Realm of Night

Back in the 1970s, Newsweek ran an article about night-shift work and life as the "frontier" -- less authority, more marginal characters, fewer rules. I looked up the article once as part of a projected project on "night."

But this is the book that I would have written if I had the talent and focus: At Day's Close: Night in Times Past.

As the New York Times reviewer writes,

'At Day's Close,'' however, is less a history of night than a bizarre sort of elegy for it. In an epilogue, the author expresses deep reservations about modernity's profligate illumination. ''With darkness diminished,'' he warns, ''opportunities for privacy, intimacy and self-reflection will grow more scarce.'' While others blame television or video games for our cultural decay, Ekirch thinks we're on an apocalyptic slide into fluorescence.

The book's publication has another scholar thinking about writing. I am looking for a new long project myself, but it won't be the book about night that I saved clippings for.