Dancing on the Stones : Selected Essays

by NICHOLS JOHN

• ISBN13: 9780826321831
• ISBN10: 0826321836
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2000-03-01
• Publisher: Univ of New Mexico Pr

Summary

"If you've read any of John Nichols's novels or books of nonfiction, you've met a lively, funny, and very impassioned man. This new collection of essays gives you the opportunity to know him even more intimately. Taoseño, fisherman, father, author, spokesman for all underdogs, Nichols has gathered writings that span more than thirty years and range from idyllic reflections on nature to unmerciful satires on impending Armageddon."--from the jacket, Dancing on the Stones

Table of Contents

Introduction	1	(4)
PART ONE My Little Infinity
I Never Met a Cloud I Didn't Like	5	(3)
Short Season	8	(3)
Dancing on the Stones	11	(4)
The Holiness of Water	15	(9)
Trout Up the Gazot	24	(7)
PART TWO Down in Guatemala
Down in Guatemala	31	(4)
A Butterfly Bomb in Taos	35	(6)
The Wounded Deer	41	(4)
Those Are Skinny Horses	45	(5)
A Man Like the Northern Weather	50	(7)
PART THREE Some Thoughts on Humiliation
The Six Greatest Museums in the West	57	(5)
Rafting? Schmafting! I Want My River Back!	62	(13)
Some Thoughts on Humiliation	75	(9)
Whole Lotta Fun in Kansas	84	(5)
PART FOUR What Is to Be Done?
The Writer as Revolutionary	89	(3)
The Case for a Social Ecology	92	(4)
An Elegy for Armageddon	96	(8)
What Is to Be Done?	104	(5)
PART FIVE The Writer at Work
My Sentimental Education	109	(11)
E = mc2	120	(13)
Night of the Living Beanfield	133	(21)
A Labor of Love	154	(13)
PART SIX To Be of Use
What Is a Naturalist, Anyway?	167	(11)
To Be of Use	178	(10)
A Man for All Seasons	188	(7)
Earl the Pearl Meets Rikki-tikki-tavi	195	(12)
PART SEVEN September Songs
A Habit of Seeing	207	(3)
The Day Lee Brodsky Died	210	(10)
Down on the Rio Grande	220	(5)
The Longest Night of My Life	225	(7)
A September Song	232
Epilogue
Everything I Always Wanted to Know About the West, I Learned in New York City	237