The Royal Game of Ur bridges the ancient past with the now. Mesopotamian citizens first enjoyed the two-person race boardgame over four millennia ago, and versions of the game persisted through the 20th century.
While excavating the Royal Cemetery at Ur between 1922 and 1934, Sir Leonard Woolley discovered gameboards like the one pictured in the cover image for this blog post. For perspective, consider that one of my grandfathers was born in 1922. In his youth, the automobile had not reached...
Despite a perhaps unfortunate name from an English speaker’s point of view, morón cleverly combines (kinda sorta) rice cakes and chocolate. Morón is a popular treat in Region 8 of the Philippines (Samar and Leyte), where at least half of my roots originate.
My wife, Jane, helped me heavily with this post. Future posts in The Yum category will follow a similar format. That said, the “Recipe” and “Things Readers Should Know” sections may vary slightly depending on the food item in question....
In my view of America—trying not to speak for the world, since they might resent it—dreams and chasing dreams are what define us as a people.
I grew up in the 90s in what I’d call a blue-collar working-class family. We were the rich family in a trailer park since our manufactured home was a doublewide. That kind of thing.
We were not poor, but not really even in the middle of the middle class. For the first twelve years of my life, we lived with my dad’s parents and one of his brothers. This...
Whether writing or just living life, I enjoy a little wordplay.
A few days ago, for instance, one of those notions that occasionally floats into my conscious thoughts blipped on my radar. The thought was: Sometimes English almost behaves like a tonal language. [A Finchly Flit: If you’re still hung up on whether that was a mixed metaphor one sentence back, know that I appreciate such pedantry.]
For those of you that haven’t had the pleasure, tonal languages pack a lot of meaning into slight...
Back in undergrad (Aside: EGADS! That’s almost twenty years ago!), I crossed paths with a guy postulating that superheroes were the American pantheon and comics our modern myths. I didn’t buy it then and I don’t buy it now, but the concept of the "American myth" stuck with me. As a boy, Greek mythology and the legends of King Arthur captured my imagination. When slightly older, the Lord of the Rings—J.R.R. Tolkien’s attempt at crafting a truly English myth—grabbed my attention.
Ever since, I’...
A picture is worth a thousand words. So goes the cliché.
Since 2022 or so, I’ve spent the holiday season wiling away my time digitizing old family photos. The process includes careful (one might say surgical) extraction of said photos from a prison of Scotch tape and photo album adhesive. More on that later. Then, for each one: I scan (often front and back, to preserve any notes, dates, names, etc.), digitally straighten and restore (via Adobe suite), back up via physical and cloud storage,...
Sumerians. Or, as they named themselves, the black-headed people.
Archaeological evidence suggests this civilization was humanity’s first. Records like the Sumerian King List (AKA the Chronicle of the One Monarchy) show that the Sumerians on some level agreed. Setting aside the cynical distinction between monarchs and peasants, leaders and led, etc., there is evidence that they viewed themselves as the first people, created and placed on Earth by the god Enki.
But, you might say, most cultures...
Light and dark.
What do those words make you think of or feel? Good and evil? Security and menacing? Work and play?
In the Raiders of Light series, one of the main themes is that light—driver of life, source of sight, etc.—in effect is a record of all things it has ever touched. Imagine a river of photons and electrons flowing through space, carrying with them the memory of every other atom they’ve passed through and around, ignorant of time and immune to aging. Granted, this is just a...
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, everyone! My plan for the blog is to, starting in the next few days, post at twice per month in one of the categories listed below. I don’t have a sense yet of how much emphasis I’ll place on each category. Time will tell--maybe we'll do an audience poll once the site gains more following.
Light's Shadow (Raiders of Light Series, Bk. 1) was selected as a BookLife Editor's Pick!
Please check out the review on their website: https://booklife.com/project/light-s-shadow-95858