Author Archives: John Swinburn

The usual Saharan Air Layer is said to be between two and three miles thick, its base about a mile above the surface of the Earth. The size of this year’s phenomenon is, according to atmospheric scientists, considerably larger than … Continue reading →

I am driving to Little Rock today. I would rather not, but my wife has an appointment with her cardiologist and is scheduled for lab work, so I will. We’ll have lunch in the parking lot before she goes in … Continue reading →

Vital signs (body temperature, heart/pulse rate, respiratory rate, and blood pressure) provide medical professionals with a broad overview of the state of a person’s physical health, offering warning signs about problems that may reside within. Obviously, those four measures barely … Continue reading →

Already this morning, I’ve written quite a lot. But none of it will ever find its way onto this blog, at least not in present form. My drafts from this morning and the last two or three days include: Ancestral … Continue reading →

I first wrote about it on May 8, 2019; Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project, a documentary film. A year later, just last month, I stumbled across information that it would finally be available on Independent Lens on PBS this month … Continue reading →

Yesterday, I decided I would take a break from posting on this blog. Just a few days. Long enough to relax and unwind from the nonstop stress of living in the ugly age of social media and mental meltdowns. Yet … Continue reading →

Threats to one’s sanity abound. They come in many forms and at any time. Eventually, one or more of those threats will break through the barriers erected to hold them at bay. When that happens, sanity takes on an entirely … Continue reading →

Seventy degrees. At a different time of year, seventy degrees can feel warm and toasty. This morning, though, seventy degrees felt so delightfully cool that I was confident I could live in seventy degree temperatures all day, every day, for … Continue reading →

Some mornings, words flow like water from a freshly-charged underground spring. Other mornings, language drips from my fingers onto the keyboard in excruciating slow motion, as if I had dipped my hands in hot tar and then plunged them into … Continue reading →

Where does one’s energy go when it goes missing? The law of conservation of energy, also known as the first law of thermodynamics, states that the energy of a closed system must remain constant—it can neither increase nor decrease without … Continue reading →

I awoke at 3:51 this morning, earlier than usual, but not by a wide margin. I thought, at that hour, I would have a couple of hours of absolute solitude; not so, in that my wife was up less than … Continue reading →

It should have come as no surprise to me that listening to certain pieces of music early in the morning can have very different effects on my psyche. But I was surprised, nonetheless—when I listened to Ravel’s Bolero and Debussy’s … Continue reading →

A few days ago, I mentioned to my sister-in-law that I remembered, years ago, having thought it would be cool to have an app that could identify birds by listening to their songs, sort of like Shazam does with music. … Continue reading →

I started the day by writing about the Unabomber. I then switched gears, locating and saving images that might complement my presentation on the transformative power of words. From there, I made a breakfast consisting of a flour tortilla, refried … Continue reading →

Darkness leaves early of late. Light pours in over the horizon like a silent nighttime flood, with no warning, until it is too late to wallow in the absence of light. The only symptom of the flood is the too-late-noticed … Continue reading →

This bright, cool, rapidly-warming morning invites me outdoors. But I am back inside, dedicating myself to writing a presentation I will make to an empty sanctuary in the coming several days. Before I started writing this morning, I spent some … Continue reading →

I’ve been awake, off and on, since 1:30. About four hours ago. I almost got up for the day at 1:30, but fortunately I looked carefully at the clock before I made the commitment to get up and get dressed. … Continue reading →