~the-last-word-on-no | Bookmarks (57)

The Last Word On Nothing | Guest Post: A Killer Whale by Any Other Name

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Last month, scientists described two new species of killer whales, and the community of cetacean researchers...
Last month, scientists described two new species of killer whales, and the community of cetacean researchers and advocates online immediately erupted in the Internet equivalent of excited squeaks, squeals, and whistles. But I felt a little bereft, my sense of killer whales as cultural beings diminished. Killer whales – or orcas if you prefer, or […]

animals commentary guest post killer whale orca
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The Last Word On Nothing | Green is hard

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art earth eco sarah sarah's art
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The Last Word On Nothing | I wrote a eulogy

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My father, Jim Fields, died unexpectedly in November at age 81, of a stroke. Last week...
My father, Jim Fields, died unexpectedly in November at age 81, of a stroke. Last week I wrote a eulogy for his memorial service on Saturday. It was hard. I’m a writer, and goldarn it I wanted it to be the best eulogy ever written. (I’m confident that I did not achieve that, but it’s […]

helen
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The Last Word On Nothing | The Dream Camera

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If you could record your dreams, would you ever be able to stop watching? That’s a...
If you could record your dreams, would you ever be able to stop watching? That’s a central plot point in Until the End of the World, Wim Wenders’ three- to five-hour arthouse flop/work of staggering genius (depending on which cut you watch) from 1991. He threw cyberpunk, detective noir, and road movie into a blender […]

miscellaneous
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The Last Word On Nothing | A New Age of Brightness

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Last night I took a crowded elevator to the hundredth floor of a skyscraper in Manhattan....
Last night I took a crowded elevator to the hundredth floor of a skyscraper in Manhattan. Not rattled or shaken, we were propelled to the top in 52 seconds, like being beamed up. Doors opened and we all poured into a high-windowed space looking onto the electric-white boroughs of New York City. A revolving door […]

commentary craig miscellaneous technology
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The Last Word On Nothing | The obstetric dilemma

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We attended our first childbirth preparation course last week, Pete and I. It was 2.5 hours...
We attended our first childbirth preparation course last week, Pete and I. It was 2.5 hours long, on Zoom, and would have made an excellent drinking game (drink every time you hear the word blood! Or mucus!) had I been drinking. Instead, we just watched it in bed on my laptop, passing a block of […]

miscellaneous
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The Last Word On Nothing | Earth at Night in Color

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Did you see the stars come out during the eclipse? Did the colors change in a...
Did you see the stars come out during the eclipse? Did the colors change in a Magic Hour kind of way? Did darkness fall without long shadows, and do you miss the experience already? I’m here to tell you there’s another way to see that, and you get Tom Hiddleston in with the bargain. Growing […]

miscellaneous
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The Last Word On Nothing | Ode to the Brown-Headed Cowbird

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I don’t know why this came out in “verse,” but here it is. I’m no poet,...
I don’t know why this came out in “verse,” but here it is. I’m no poet, but I had fun regardless. And if you read it right, it really does scan! Upon my feeder yesterdayA cowbird male did land,Brown-headed with his body coalAt first glance not too grand.But then I took the time to learnThe […]

miscellaneous
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The Last Word On Nothing | Eclipse

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Eclipse The earth moved to follow his smile, but she stood aside, let the planet pass....
Eclipse The earth moved to follow his smile, but she stood aside, let the planet pass. Her signs were subtler: quivers of little stars, the sucking dark depths of the ocean. Young women turned their faces to him like flowers, hoping for a laugh, an accidental touch, and men labored hard to prove their worth […]

astronomy eclipse eclipse week kate poetry
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The Last Word On Nothing | There Goes the Sun

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In the week leading up to a rare total solar eclipse, we bring you a daily lineup...
In the week leading up to a rare total solar eclipse, we bring you a daily lineup of eclipse writing from the People of LWON. Richard had a plum gig in the 90s when magazines used to send us places, so he caught an eclipse from a unique vantage point. Posted in 2017: On Monday the world […]

miscellaneous
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The Last Word On Nothing | Why Am I Not There?

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In the week leading up to a once-in-a-lifetime total solar eclipse, we bring you a daily lineup...
In the week leading up to a once-in-a-lifetime total solar eclipse, we bring you a daily lineup of eclipse writing from the People of LWON. Craig missed out on the last eclipse, reminding us that the moon is not the only important thing under the sun. I’m not at the totality today, and it’s been gnawing at […]

miscellaneous
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The Last Word On Nothing | A Toddler in Totality

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In the week leading up to a rare total solar eclipse, we bring you a daily lineup...
In the week leading up to a rare total solar eclipse, we bring you a daily lineup of eclipse writing from the People of LWON. Cassie and her husband Soren captured a remarkable recording last time, memorializing Baby’s First Eclipse. A couple of months ago, I hatched a really good plan. My husband and I would drive […]

miscellaneous
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The Last Word On Nothing | On the Path of Totality

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In the week leading up to a total solar eclipse, we bring you a daily lineup of...
In the week leading up to a total solar eclipse, we bring you a daily lineup of eclipse writing from the People of LWON. Helen’s phone died before the last eclipse, and thank goodness for that, because now we have her charming drawings to capture its spirit. I’m writing this from a traffic jam on I-95. When […]

miscellaneous
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The Last Word On Nothing | Not Even Looking Up

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In the week leading up to a rare total solar eclipse, we bring you a daily...
In the week leading up to a rare total solar eclipse, we bring you a daily lineup of eclipse writing from the People of LWON. Ann, always the contrarian, looks right when everyone is looking left, and down when everyone else is looking up. This post first appeared in 2017. So, LWON is eclipsing, on into […]

miscellaneous
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The Last Word On Nothing | Why the Last Eclipse Mattered and This One Will Too

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In the week leading up to a once-in-a-lifetime total solar eclipse, we bring you a daily...
In the week leading up to a once-in-a-lifetime total solar eclipse, we bring you a daily lineup of eclipse writing from the People of LWON. Our Christie and her father, Friend of LWON Dee Friesen, have a long tradition of eclipse appreciation, the last decade of which is shared here. From the 2017 eclipse: You […]

miscellaneous
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The Last Word On Nothing | The Weight of the Eclipse

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In the week leading up to a rare total solar eclipse, we bring you a daily...
In the week leading up to a rare total solar eclipse, we bring you a daily lineup of eclipse writing from the People of LWON. This piece was contributed as a guest post in 2017 by our own dear Becky, who has since joined us full time. 2017 was the year of the Great American […]

miscellaneous
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The Last Word On Nothing | Eclipse Week 2024

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When the two minutes, forty seconds were over, each observer left her instrument, turned in silence...
When the two minutes, forty seconds were over, each observer left her instrument, turned in silence from the sun, and wrote down brief notes. Happily, someone broke through all rules of order and shouted out, “The shadow! The shadow!” And, looking toward the southeast, we saw the black band of shadow moving from us, 160 miles […]

special series
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The Last Word On Nothing | Time Will Tell

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Even though it happened two weeks ago, the time change still feels like it has a...
Even though it happened two weeks ago, the time change still feels like it has a grip on me. I wake up disoriented in the dark, and then at the end of the day, I have a burst of energy that keeps me up past my bedtime. Rinse, lather, repeat. I know that time will […]

daylight saving miscellaneous spring time
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The Last Word On Nothing | Lugworms? Why, Certainly!

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[This post ran some years back, and I thought, hey, let’s revisit lugworms! I mean, is...
[This post ran some years back, and I thought, hey, let’s revisit lugworms! I mean, is there ever a wrong time? Enjoy.] ——— I warned you. Well, I warned someone…probably one of my fellow LWONers…that if nobody suggested a compelling way to fill this space for today, I’d write about lugworms. Time’s up! I’ve actually […]

miscellaneous
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The Last Word On Nothing | In Praise of Minor Bulbs

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This first ran on April 5, 2021. In the years since, the Wisley blues remain fine...
This first ran on April 5, 2021. In the years since, the Wisley blues remain fine and flourishing (“flourish,” from “florire,” to flower, HA!); the Siberian squill have moved around but are still in little bunches except at my neighbor’s house where they’ve grown into cities; the anemones continue to look demure and squirrel-resistent. And […]

miscellaneous
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The Last Word On Nothing | On Winthrop Pond

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This post originally appeared in March of 2023 All art is the original work of the...
This post originally appeared in March of 2023 All art is the original work of the author

on winthrop pond sarah sarah's art
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The Last Word On Nothing | Peak Bloom, By Night

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One of the great signs of spring in Washington, D.C., is the herds of middle schoolers...
One of the great signs of spring in Washington, D.C., is the herds of middle schoolers who arrive, on trips to Learn About America. I got to partake in this annual migration in a small way myself this year; a friend from college had brought her very own eighth grader to town for spring break. […]

helen nature trees
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The Last Word On Nothing | Redux: Vanishing Points

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This essay originally appeared in 2012. If the artwork above looks familiar, the reason might be...
This essay originally appeared in 2012. If the artwork above looks familiar, the reason might be that it was part of the argument that Ann made in a recent post. She suggested that the beauty of the Florentine paintings of the fifteenth century—“stunning, literally; you look at them and can hardly breathe”—couldn’t have been due […]

ann art history/philosophy miscellaneous richard
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The Last Word On Nothing | Toward a theory of cuteness aggression

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I want a dog. For a while now, my awareness of this has been getting louder....
I want a dog. For a while now, my awareness of this has been getting louder. It was when I encountered these little gentlemen that the urgency of the situation became undeniable. (If you value your hearing turn down the volume before you hit play.) I’ve lived with many canines – parents’ dogs, roommate dogs, […]

miscellaneous
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