Reading Thoreau Again
Tuesday, February 03 2026
One of my friends contacted me not long ago and said, “Hey, you’re going to be in the Ken Burns documentary on Henry David Thoreau in March. I just saw you in the trailer. Are you going to do anything to be ready for when it comes out?” Truth told, I knew there was a Thoreau documentary coming sometime in 2026, but I wasn’t sure when.
- Published in Dispatches from the Road
Solitude & Loneliness: Pondering Steinbeck While Reading Thoreau
Monday, February 02 2026
One of the great things about reading a lot is that it gives you the insights of triangulation. One book illuminates, interprets, and perhaps even disagrees with another, though the authors never met.
- Published in Books
Running Out of Gas (And the Value of the Humanities)
Monday, January 12 2026
I nearly ran out of gas yesterday on a remote highway in the Bitterroot Mountains. It was a winding, narrow road with no shoulder to pull off onto ... but more of this crisis later in the story.
- Published in Features
The Great Downsizing Campaign
Tuesday, December 30 2025
“The cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.” — Thoreau
- Published in Dispatches from the Road
Remembering My Beloved Oxford University Mentor
Tuesday, December 23 2025
Clay remembers an early and influential mentor, Professor John Carey of Oxford University.
- Published in Dispatches from the Road
Are We Rome?
Tuesday, December 02 2025
Answer: we are Rome … but are we doomed to suffer the Republic's fate? Clay parallels the Republics (Rome's and our own) considering ways to avoid Rome's calamitous end.
- Published in Dispatches from the Road
America at 250: The Racial Divide
Monday, November 17 2025
Last week, I spoke at a symposium on race and the American Revolution. This essay is the result of my deliberations for that event and is one in a series of essays I’m writing reflecting on a range of issues as America approaches its 250th birthday.
- Published in Features
The Latest in My Great 2025 Downsizing Campaign
Tuesday, November 04 2025
Friends have encouraged me to downsize for well more than a decade. I’m making progress!
- Published in Dispatches from the Road
The World of Error in a Galaxy of Facts
Tuesday, October 28 2025
Clay ponders the “Truth Taser.” The best invention since the Veg-O-Matic?
- Published in Features
My Adventures in Downsizing
Monday, October 20 2025
After spending five or six decades buying books, an enormous number of books, I have begun to downsize.
- Published in Dispatches from the Road