Encounters With Those Inescapable AI Generated “10 Best Lists”
Monday, February 23 2026
Can Artificial Intelligence reliably rank the 10 greatest poems of all time?
- Published in Dispatches from the Road
Book Review — Volga Blues: A Journey Into the Heart of Russia
Monday, February 16 2026
My friend, the Italian journalist Marzio Mian, has just published a remarkable book on his monthlong underground journey along Russia’s sacred Volga River. Part travelogue, part Russian history, and part exploration of the dense, tragic Russian soul in a time of brutal war, the book is a powerful read when America’s place in world affairs is significantly unsettled.
- Published in Books
Downsizing Pays off Big — With a Trip Down Abbey Road
Tuesday, February 10 2026
I don’t know exactly what I expected from my personal downsizing campaign, but something really interesting is happening to me.
- Published in Dispatches from the Road
An Age of Disillusionment
Monday, February 09 2026
What Is our American Story as the Nation’s 250th Birthday Approaches?
- Published in Features
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
Thoughts for a New Constitutional Beginning
Tuesday, January 06 2026
As the nation approaches its 250th birthday this July 2026, Clay suggests it might serve the country well to revisit details of our Constitution.
- Published in Uncategorized
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
My Year in Review
Tuesday, December 30 2025
Last week, I reviewed the year 2025 by way of Time magazine’s Year in Review issue. Today I want to review my year as the traveling editor of Listening to America.
- Published in Features
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