The hip-hop artist and climate activist Xiuhtezcatl Martinez was in Flagstaff late last week for an address at NAU’s Climate 2020 summit and an evening performance at the Orpheum Theater. He made it clear up front that the rules of engagement for the two events were not the same. “I need you all right in front, in the mosh pit!” he commanded the sitting...
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The first time I glimpsed it, the Big Stump from a distance loomed vaguely ahead like some oversized vacationer, perhaps some former football player out on the coast for a weekend of casual fun. But no. As I got closer I saw that it was taller and more wide-shouldered than even the biggest linebacker. It looked like a massive, solid block of dark wet wood...
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September has always been complicated. Other months were easily defined in the Upper Midwest when I was growing up. February: Frigid, brutal, a sharp razor of a month that couldn’t cut its way out of town too soon. July: A saunter cut through with the scent of freshly mown grass and the whip-whip of lawn sprinklers hissing their way into the late dusk....
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A few mornings after returning home I wake up from a dream of Spanish. Not in Spanish, which is an idealistic beginner’s aspiration, but of: the entire language had become a dense tangled mass of plants, a vegetative riot rich with exclamations, scraps of conversations and whispers, and though most of the sense remained murky to me, here and there I could...
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In the hubbub over the Women’s World Cup it has been easy to overlook, in the U.S. at least, that there’s been another major soccer tournament underway. I heard about it on a plane to Paraguay. In the only announcement that didn’t have to do with routine matters of timing, altitude or weather, the pilot reported the results of two first-round matches to...
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