Maybe it’s weird, but I know more about people in my imagined universe than I do about the real people in my life. I figure real folks are entitled to their privacy. But if I thought you up and wrote you down, I DO know and WILL share salacious and embarassing details.
I create back stories for all my characters. People in my books reappear in later works. I take characters who showed up in an earlier novel or short story and fill in their profiles – sometimes against their wills.
Which brings us to Brian Klevenger. He made a brief appearance in Tsunami Cowboys, remember? Brian is Scott McCreedy’s best friend. He’s an only child, the son of alcoholics, and spends as much time as possible at Scott’s house.
Brian takes center stage in my most recent novel The Taste of Your Name. He’s fled to Germany where he does reminiscence therapy with dementia patients. He’s sleeping with two sisters. And (because I wrote his story) I tell the readers his most secret inner thoughts and emotions (because getting to do so is one of the great rewards of being a writer).
Brian is one of the most complex, complete human beings I know. You can meet him here: Amazon.com. Available around the world as eBook, hardcover, and paperback.
I am a Best American Essays-nominated writer. My books are Broken In: A Novel in Stories, Tsunami Cowboys, Grounded, The Trail Back Out, and The Taste of Your Name. My most recent book with Brian, The Taste of Your Name, was a finalist for the 2025 Compass Press Book Award.
I’m beyond dismayed – I am furious. The Trump administration is gutting environmental protections. As The Los Angeles Times reported, “Repealing key protections could erase $254 billion in annual benefits for public health and the environment, compared with $39 billion in savings for regulated industries.” [1]
To quote blogger Curtis Mahon: “To my many friends who thought it wouldn’t happen, guess what, it has happened! Donald Trump has dropped the environmental destruction nuke of an EO, planning to sunset ALL environmental regulations made in the last 100 years. And I mean ALL. https://www.whitehouse.gov/…/zero-based-regulatory…/
The Endangered Species Act. Gone. The Migratory Bird Treaty Act. Gone. The Marine Mammal Protection Act. Gone. The Anadromous Fish Conservation Act. Gone. The Bald Eagle Protection Act. Gone! You name it, it’s gone.
To remind those friends why we have these laws, I’m going to try to put them into terms which anyone can understand, money. The Endangered Species Act is literally the founding, central pillar of modern conservation globally. It’s hard to list the accomplishments of this act as it is so vast. It directly protects and calls for plans to raise the populations of rare species. It’s directly responsible for the comeback of many iconic species, such as the Bald Eagle, the Peregrine Falcon, the California Condor, and a host of others. Talk about return on investment, the amount of money spent vs the amount gained from people wishing to just see iconic rare species is in the billions of dollars. For what would a visit to the grand canyon be without seeing a condor soar over or a visit to Yellowstone without seeing wolves and bison. People do whole drives across the country just for these experiences and that’s what the ESA is about. Lots of revenue there. The Migratory Bird Treaty Act was one of the first environmental laws every made, and bans the harm or collection of all non-game birds in America. It was implemented in a time when hunters we shooting everything to turn them into hats, from songbirds to puffins to herons to albatross. The banning of this and subsequent restoration efforts lead to dramatic increases in bird populations and continue to protect them from harm. In just one example, consider a puffin. In Maine, every tourist I talk to wants to see two things, lobster and puffins. They were once hunted to near extinction in the US and are now a central pillar to the economy of an ENTIRE STATE. Thousands of people a DAY take expensive boat trips for puffins and that’s at risk without these regulations, not to mention cuts to NOAA. The Marine Mammal Protection Act protects whales from being killed or harmed and lead to the global war on whaling. Now because of it, America watches whales! You can go on a whale watch in nearly every coastal city in America and it generates HUNDREDS of millions of dollars in tourism and employs thousands of people. We hurt whales, we hurt our pockets and jobs.
The Anadromous Fish Conservation Act allows the government to enter agreements with states and plan and fund ways to increase the populations of migratory fish. It has direct benefits to anglers across the country, funding 50% of initiatives for things like stocking and habitat restoration in major fisheries such as both Atlantic and Pacific Salmon, Trout, Striped Bass, American Shad, and Sturgeon. And removing the Bald Eagle Protection Act! I thought we loved eagle guys? What’s more American than a Bald Eagle, and they want to remove protections for them? Many older Americans can probably remember a time when they never saw Bald Eagles. Now you can see them commonly in nearly every state! That’s a direct result of the Endangered Species Act and Bald Eagle Protection Act. These are just a few of the laws the Republican party wishes to remove. All have proven track records of benefiting Americans, both monetarily through supporting major American industries worth billions of dollars and employing hundreds of thousands of Americans and spiritually as corner stones of the country’s wilderness. The removal of these protections is peak short term gains over long term profits.”
I’m going to repost a blog thread I wrote ten years ago. I wrote it to honor my entomologist father Bobbo and inform readers in a humorous way about animals that are on the Endangered Species List.
Now it’s going to be all of them. We won’t take long to end up on that list too. For these posts I updated my information on endangered species. Most of the news is grim. Take action. Volunteer. Speak up! Write letters, make phone calls, donate to organizations like the Environmental Defense Fund and Greenpeace.
I am a Best American Essays-nominated writer. My books are Broken In: A Novel in Stories, Tsunami Cowboys, Grounded, The Trail Back Out, and The Taste of Your Name. My most recent book The Taste of Your Name was a finalist for the 2025 Compass Press Book Award.
Traveling for a long time with just one suitcase is great. It forces me to limit what I take with me. And it limits what I can bring back. I admit it: I felt pretty virtuous about this. And then I fell in love with the traditional baskets of southern Africa.
We were in a remote lodge and wanted to buy a bird book to identify the bird life Uwe was taking pictures of every day. I wandered around their gift shop. They had a collection of brightly colored woven metal baskets, but the one I was most drawn to was a natural-colored basket hanging on the wall.
“It’s from Chobe,” I was told. We’d just come from there, and I left the shop with book and basket. I began to search out baskets from small stands on the roadsides.
Here’s another beautiful basket for you. This pattern is called: The ribs of a zebra. Isn’t it stunning?
Click here for my author page to learn more about me and purchase my books.
I am a Best American Essays-nominated writer. My books are Broken In: A Novel in Stories, Tsunami Cowboys, Grounded, The Trail Back Out, and The Taste of Your Name. My most recent book The Taste of Your Name was a finalist for the 2025 Compass Press Book Award.
Consider this a public service announcement. I repeat: Save your receipts!
I just took a long holiday which started in January. It’s a long flight to New York City. I arrived jet-lagged and my bag hadn’t made it onto the plane. It was about 0° Celsius and all my other sweaters were in Frankfurt. I was tired, annoyed, and cold.
Avoid gypsy cabs! Don’t get ripped off!signs warned. I booked a taxi to the city at JFK’s official airport kiosk in the International Arrivals terminal. My cab ride would cost about $77. Fair enough…
When the driver dropped me at my hotel I paid with a credit card and rounded up the bill to $95 to give him an $18 tip, stuffed the receipt in my wallet, and wearily climbed out of the cab. Let the holidays begin!
A week later in Mexico (I did say this was an extended trip) I logged into my bank’s website to see which charges had come in. There was my cab ride in NYC… $178.44.
WTF???
I remembered that receipt I’d stuffed in my wallet. Later I’d placed it with all the other receipts I’d accrued while traveling. I like to check them against the bank charges to be sure my account balances are still sufficient to cover costs. I dug through my bag (which had finally arrived almost 48 hours after I did) and found the receipt for the taxi ride. Check it out:
Did you spot it? He’d given himself a VERY generous $95 tip. I was so jet-lagged that without checking I’d just signed the credit card machine he’d held out. “Round it up to $95,” I’d told him. $95?” he’d repeated.
Maybe it had been an honest mistake. Or maybe as a driver picking up tourists traveling from overseas he’d figured that I would head on my merry way and never know that he’d knowingly given himself a tip that would cost me more than the ride itself. He figured I’d see the charge on my bank statement and not have any way to get my money back.
Check out that receipt again.
It gives his driver number. 5841026. It lists his cab number. 1P88. It names the date, time, distance, tunnel charges, starting point and destination, AND IT PROVIDES A WEBSITE!
I wrote a pissed-off email to the company and they reimbursed me for the tip charge ($95!!!) the next day. I don’t know what happened to Driver #5841026, but I enjoyed some fantasies… So. In conclusion, save your receipts.
And don’t leave the damned cab before you review what you’re being charged.
I am a Best American Essays-nominated writer. My books are Broken In: A Novel in Stories, Tsunami Cowboys, Grounded, The Trail Back Out, and The Taste of Your Name. My most recent book The Taste of Your Name was a finalist for the 2025 Compass Press Book Award.
Author Washington Irving was born on April 3, 1783 in New York. Washington Irving is a lifetime favorite, beginning with my childhood: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow! Rip Van Winkle! We lived near the region he set his stories in and it was easy to imagine his terrifying headless horsemen or the bearded men bowling in the hills and creating thunder.
I’d forgotten that he stayed and wrote at the Alhambra in 1829, when it was a neglected ruin. Now, that’s artistic inspiration. In his honor here is the post I wrote after visiting the Alhambra. —Jadi
***
“Perhaps there never was a monument more characteristic of an age and people than the Alhambra; a rugged fortress without, a voluptuous palace within; war frowning from its battlements; poetry breathing throughout the fairy architecture of its halls.” ― Washington Irving, Tales of the Alhambra
I made a second trip to southern Spain. It had been over forty years between visits, and I had no idea what – if anything – I might remember. My first trip was with my high school Spanish Club. We were all young, and boy were we excited to be able to drink legally for a change!
In an earlier post I wrote about my spatial memories in Granada. At the Alhambra I had strange wavy recollections of reflecting pools and intricate walls.
To visit the palace rooms of the Alhambra is like stepping inside one gigantic extended scrollwork of interlocking geometric design.
I can remember loving the symmetry. I sure don’t remember any specific part of it. As I say, my memories are a blurry recollection of warm stone walls with ingenious decorations. Just… an impression of a harmony that contains a hundred thousand details you will get lost in once you begin examining the space more closely.
Southern Spain is frequently the hottest region in Europe. At the peak of summer, it stays oppressively hot (100°F and above) and very dry. We visited Andalusia at the very end of September/start of October, and the temperatures were still in the 90s. You seek relief in rooms with the latticed windows that let in light but not heat. Or you walk in the walled gardens.
Water, water, everywhere…. The former Islamic rulers built a sophisticated system of fountains and pools. Those fountains were designed to include the sound of flowing waters, and flowers and fruit trees were planted to delight the senses with their perfumes.
Memory returned vivid and at the same time somehow distorted at the Alhambra palace’s innermost courtyard spaces. Only those wonderful carved lions at the private fountain were just as I remembered them.
And those were more than enough to make me very, very happy.
“In the present day, when popular literature is running into the low levels of life, and luxuriating on the vices and follies of mankind; and when the universal pursuit of gain is trampling down the early growth of poetic feeling, and wearing out the verdure of the soul, I question whether it would not be of service for the reader occasionally to turn to these records of prouder times and loftier modes of thinking; and to steep himself to the very lips in old Spanish romance.” ― Washington Irving, Tales of the Alhambra
In memory of Washington Irving, April 3, 1783 – November 28, 1859
I am a Best American Essays-nominated writer. My books are Broken In: A Novel in Stories, Tsunami Cowboys, Grounded, The Trail Back Out, and The Taste of Your Name. My most recent book The Taste of Your Name was a finalist for the 2025 Compass Press Book Award.
I am a Best American Essays-nominated writer. My books are Broken In: A Novel in Stories, Tsunami Cowboys, Grounded, The Trail Back Out, and The Taste of Your Name. My most recent book The Taste of Your Name was a finalist for the 2025 Compass Press Book Award.
The south of Africa’s exotic landscapes and incredible wildlife have provided me with an endless source of inspiration. The more I write, the more I recall about what we saw and experienced.
I fell in love with the traditional baskets and – something I never, ever do – I sought them out and purchased some to bring home. It’s a rare desire for me. My rule of thumb when we’re traveling is to keep reminding myself: “Jadi, you own an apartment, not a big house! Where are you going to store anything you bring home?” So, I limit myself to one beautiful item, and try to make it an object that’s useful.
But, the baskets. I bought the first one at a Living Village, excusing the purchase by telling Uwe I wanted to support local arts and artists of the Kavango.
I picked up and held at least half those baskets one by one, trying to decide. There was no one else there so I could take my time.
Later, when I was seeking out small stands with traditional baskets, I told each shop keeper, “I’m sorry, but I’m a slow shopper…. I’m waiting to hear which of your baskets speaks to me.” They all smiled when I said this. I think they liked the idea of a tourist who was willing to wait until a piece of handmade work reached out to her with something to say.
I’d connected with the history and artistry and continuity and passing on of tradition – and love – that each basket contains. At some point very early in our trip, Uwe and I fell in love with these countries and this part of the world and its people. Most places and people are wonderful, of course; but this area of southern Africa touched us in a deep immediate way.
The Living Villages in Namibia are staffed by local San people who want to keep the old traditions from fading from memory. A joint Namibia/German project, the Living Villages promoted community-based tourism.
boys practice with hewing small boats; as adults, they’ll know how to make the real onesclay for cooking vessels and toysprepping reeds
Sometimes traveling we feel like we bear witness to a culture that’s changing so fast it will soon be gone. The Mbunza Living Museum got me interested in the region’s basketry – a tradition that’s still very much alive.
I bought my first basket here. 5 more followed.
My first basket on the left, from the Mbunza Living Museum. Pattern: Tears of the giraffe
I am a Best American Essays-nominated writer. My books are Broken In: A Novel in Stories, Tsunami Cowboys, Grounded, The Trail Back Out, and The Taste of Your Name. My most recent book The Taste of Your Name was a finalist for the 2025 Compass Press Book Award.
Anaïs Nin was born on February 21, 1903 in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France. She wrote essays, diaries, short stories, novels, and erotica. She befriended and promoted fellow author Henry Miller. Her work is strong, feminine, and unapologetically sexual. In her honor I am reprinting the post I wrote after we visited an amazing temple complex in India: Khajuraho. – Jadi
When we visited, Khajuraho could only be reached via a long trek on bad roads. Since we’re talking about India, this means the roads are bad indeed.
Where’d the road go?Down here maybe?
The driver we’d hired was there to meet us at our hotel in Agra, and off we went. Five bone-jolting hours later we reached our destination.
Along with its inaccessibility, Khajuraho is notorious for 1,000 year old, perfectly preserved, UNESCO World Heritage erotic carvings.
Somehow this site survived a millennia (millennia, people!), in a spot that had no fortresses or fortifications to speak of. The temple complex existed simply for the purpose of worship.
And what worship. Every single inch of the temple buildings are carved in high relief, depicting gods, tender lovers, voluptuous attendants, monkeys, elephants, assistants for the sexual act….
Hundreds of skilled stonemasons were hired to build the site. The Khajuraho region has excellent sandstone, and the sandstone temples were built with granite foundations. All were constructed without mortar! Instead, gravity holds the stones together with mortise and tenon joints.
Some of these stones are megaliths weighing up to 20 tons.
The glory of sandstone is that it loans itself to delicate carving. Even viewing the temple walls from the ground we could see the wrinkles in Ganesh’s trunk; the fingernails of the apsaras and the beads in their strands of jewelry; the sheer layers of veils over their thighs and buttocks.
Uwe vanished almost immediately with his camera, leaving me alone with the young male guide. I could feel my face go red, and it wasn’t a hot flash or sunburn. I was terribly afraid of how embarrassed I was going to be. But the guide pointed out the various depictions of the act of love and spoke in a clear calm voice, explaining the significance (pull your minds of out the gutter, dear readers) in terms of energy, religion, and esoteric philosophy.
It was mid-January, past the usual Christmas tourist season. It was also a two-week period when northern and central India get swathed in fogs – something smarter tourists than we knew. As a result we had the pleasure of being two of the few Westerners at the site.
Most of the others were Indians on holiday, and I was touched to see that at Khajuraho, this meant young married couples. They walked around the compound, standing in front of particularly erotic carved panels, heads together in discussion.
How about the next panel?Is that a new yoga position?
While only 10% of the carvings depict sexual acts, you can guess which panels elicited the most commentary. These were the love-making couples known as maithunas. Other carvings depict everyday activities: playing musicians, potters, farmers, soldiers on horseback, etc.
Musicians
The temples were probably built in the one hundred year period between 950 and 1050 AD, during the Rajput Chandella dynasty. According to historical records, by 1100 Khajuraho contained 85 temples covering 20 square kilometers. Roughly 20 temples still stand. They were located 60 kilometers from Mahoba, the medieval capital of the Chandela kingdom.
Khajuraho was mentioned by the Arabic historian Abu Rihan-al-Biruni, in 1022 AD, and by Ibn Battuta, the Moroccan traveler, in 1335 AD.
When Muslim rulers took control, heathen places of worship were systematically destroyed. Ironically, even centuries ago the remoteness of these temples helped secure their survival. Nature did the rest as vegetation and forest reclaimed the site. For years the temples were covered by dense date palm trees which gave the city its name: in Hindi, Khajur = date. (The more ancient name was Vatsa.)
The scenes explain Hinduism’s four goals for life: dharma (right way of living), kama (aesthetic enjoyment), artha (prosperity) and moksha (liberation). The complexity of the geometric layout and the grid pattern of the temples with their circles, squares and triangles, the importance of geographic orientation and bodies of water and the carvings’ iconography is beyond my very weak grasp. Instead, here is an excerpt from the UNESCO website:
Greatly influenced by the Tantric school of thought, the Chandela kings promoted various Tantric doctrines through royal monuments, including temples. Sculptors of Khajuraho depicted all aspects of life. The society of the time believed in dealing frankly and openly with all aspects of life, including sex. Sex is important because Tantric cosmos is divided into the male and female principle. Male principle has the form and potential, female has the energy. According to Hindu and Tantric philosophy, one cannot achieve anything without the other, as they manifest themselves in all aspects of the universe. Nothing can exist without their cooperation and coexistence. In accordance with ancient treaties on architecture, erotic depictions were reserved for specific parts of the temples only. The rest of the temple was profusely covered with other aspects of life, secular and spiritual. Source: UNESCO/CLT/WHC
Khajuraho remained forgotten by the outside world until 1838 when a British army engineer, Captain T.S. Burt, was carried in via palanquin. I laughed so hard when I read that the Victorian officer was shocked by what he found….
Khajuraho!
In memory of Anaïs Nin, February 21, 1903 – January 14, 1977
I am a Best American Essays-nominated writer. My books are Broken In: A Novel in Stories, Tsunami Cowboys, Grounded, The Trail Back Out, and The Taste of Your Name. My most recent book The Taste of Your Name was a finalist for the 2025 Compass Press Book Award.
The Merchant of Venice, Act V scene I: “…There’s not the smallest orb which thou behold’st But in his motion like an angel sings….”
my cherished Complete Works of William Shakespeare Illustrated by Rockwell Kent
According to the Royal Shakespeare Company, ‘[t]he title page of the first edition of the play, printed in 1600, states that it has been ‘divers times acted by the Lord Chamberlaine his Servants’. The first recorded performance was at court on Shrove Sunday, 10 February, 1605. King James and his courtiers must have enjoyed it because it was performed again two days later.’ [1]
Here, in honor of The Merchant of Veniceand the Immortal Bard, is my original post about the music of the heavenly spheres.
Schwedagon Pagoda, Rangon
In 2009 we spent 4 weeks in Burma, the maximum time permitted on a visa. For years we’d debated back and forth about whether to go. Does one travel to a repressive regime? Just the year before, monks were shot for demonstrating peacefully in the streets. In the end we decided to go and bear witness. A country closed tight and ruled with iron fists, the poverty and corruption are unbelievable… as are the loving kindness of the Burmese and the beauty and magic of their land. I have been pondering what to post about our trip to Burma and how to write it, because Burma is unlike anyplace on earth.
But these are only words.
Let me begin again, this time with a story:
Sacred Pali script
On our very last day in-country, in Yangon we stopped at a café on a busy street with outdoor tables. All of the tables were filled with other tourists. The locals did not have the money for anything so extravagant. A beer, a pineapple juice, and hot green tea arrived; I wrote out some last post cards. Hovering in the street were the post card seller, a hawker for newspapers (used and days old), and a skinny boy with an endless “Hello? hello! Hello? hello!” When a tourist looked his way he said “Eat,” and mimed someone putting food in his mouth. He hovered looking over the wall dividing the café from the street, persistent with hunger.
I became aware of an ethereal music swimming its way up from the background of my consciousness. I thought someone down the street a ways with access to a power generator was playing a recording of a beautiful, haunting voice. Then the sound came nearer, and it was a young Burmese person. At first I thought it was a man slowly making his way down the road. It was a woman: she had her hair up under a cap and thanaka paste on her cheeks to protect her skin from the sun.
A voice from the Heavenly Spheres
She halted and stood very still as she sang, or chanted verses, or recited a Buddhist prayer. It wasn’t clear if she was singing or speaking and didn’t matter. The purity of that voice pierced all barriers and reached all hearts. Every so often the little metal cymbals in her fingers went ching! in a perfect counterpoint.
When she stopped, the entire café burst into spontaneous applause. People kept getting out of their seats to put bills in the can on a string around her neck. I checked my wallet. I knew my last offering in Burma was going to this young woman with the voice that sang with the music of the spheres. This music usually can’t be heard. The Greek mathematician Pythagoras of Samos believed the movement of planets (heavenly spheres) creates ethereal and earthly harmonies; Shakespeare wrote often about how these harmonies affect events. All I know for sure is that on that afternoon, in a dusty street in Burma, a young woman was channeling that music for us to hear.
I walked out with a 1,000 kyat note, stepped around the restaurant’s retaining wall to donate – and saw my singer had just one leg. She was propping herself up with a rough plank of wood.
This is my final image of the country sometimes called Myanmar. This is my avatar for Burma: a transcendent voice beyond language, standing with only one leg, singing gloriously, regardless. [3]
I am a Best American Essays-nominated writer. My books are Broken In: A Novel in Stories, Tsunami Cowboys, Grounded, The Trail Back Out, and The Taste of Your Name. My most recent book The Taste of Your Name was a finalist for the 2025 Compass Press Book Award.
I am a Best American Essays-nominated writer. My books are Broken In: A Novel in Stories, Tsunami Cowboys, Grounded, The Trail Back Out, and The Taste of Your Name. My most recent book The Taste of Your Name was a finalist for the 2025 Compass Press Book Award.
NOTES: © Jadi Campbell 2024. Zebra photo ©2023 Uwe Hartmann. Uwe’s photos of our trips and his photography may be viewed at 
I made a second trip to southern Spain. It had been over forty years between visits, and I had no idea what – if anything – I might remember. My first trip was with my high school Spanish Club. We were all young, and boy were we excited to be able to drink legally for a change!
I can remember loving the symmetry. I sure don’t remember any specific part of it. As I say, my memories are a blurry recollection of warm stone walls with ingenious decorations. Just… an impression of a harmony that contains a hundred thousand details you will get lost in once you begin examining the space more closely.
Water, water, everywhere…. The former Islamic rulers built a sophisticated system of fountains and pools. Those fountains were designed to include the sound of flowing waters, and flowers and fruit trees were planted to delight the senses with their perfumes.
I picked up and held at least half those baskets one by one, trying to decide. There was no one else there so I could take my time.
