Descartes, sitting in a bar

Descartes is sitting in a bar, having a drink.

The bartender asks him if he would like another. 'I think not,' he says and vanishes in a puff of logic.

My "Surfing Injury"

I’ve been away from this blog, while toodling around the states. I’ve parked myself for the moment at a beach house near Point Pleasant, on the north New Jersey coast. Until the weather turned yesterday, it had been beautiful--sunny, the surf high, the water warm. I’m looking out the window at the water now.

Last week I spectated at the Kenny Tooker Long Board Classic, sponsored by Beach House Surf Shop, and I was inspired to get out on the waves the next day. Consequently I’ve been nursing, and complaining about to anyone who’ll listen, a surfing injury. Actually, it’s more a boogy-boarding injury. My Malibu correspondent, filmmaker and surf aficionado Steve Gaghan, suggests it’d be a better if I said, “I was pulling a floater high and inside at bondi when my back fin hit the back of a great white, i tumbled down the face, at least six feet aussie size meaning triple overhead anywhere else, went through the washing machine, fortunately my momentum carried me back over the shark nets and i was saved.”

The truth is I tripped on a flipper… here on this beach in New Jersey.

Meanwhile, more here...

Today is Labor Day

And here's some history via Talk Left.

Years ago, before I was an editor or a writer, I worked at a factory making paper and was a member of United Paperworkers of America. The work was exhausting, but I made a living.

James Linville is...

... now posting primarily at STANDPOINT magazine, HERE... still as James Scott Linville... me, as described HERE.

All Main Point archives remain here.

Summer Postcard from the Hills, India

In north London something has been messing around with the bins. The neighbors' dog, no doubt, the aged one that barks blindly, still not recognizing me, whenever I pass their gate. Meanwhile, another near neighbor received this missive from our friend Anuradha Roy, author of the recently-published An Atlas of Impossible Longing.

Roy writes:

Feeling rather shaken because as I was writing this email a leopard came andtook our neighbour's dog, a sweet, slightly demented little thing calledGoldie who had barked his heart out at Biscoot this morning, as everymorning. He stands on his hind legs and barks in a frenzy--such comical rage. Now there's much yelling and shouting down the hill, but too late.Last month another favourite, a short legged, bushy tailed brown-and-whitecalled Bobo had vanished.

A leopard. Panthera pardus, a protected species in India. We come across them on and off--crossing a road, sliding into the forest--after dark. From the safety of a car, they're magnificent. The town I live in is at the edge of a forest which has quite a lot of wildlife, the leopard included--and when they haven't enough prey in the forest, which they usually don't, they are always on the lookout for food. They love dogs--but not in the way we do!