My name is Ethan Perelstein. I was born and raised in Flagstaff where I lived until I moved across the planet to Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria, 18 months ago. Aside from the language barrier and other culture shocks that come from moving to Eastern Europe, Blagoevgrad is a very comfortable fit for me. It has a population of 75,000, the trees turn yellow and red...
Read MoreTipping the balance; This is a good day
This week’s guest columnist is Karla Theilen “All I need to kick this virus once and for all is lots of hot tea, some lemonade and a clean pair of underwear,” my patient announced as I fastened the blood pressure cuff around her arm. She paused and stared straight ahead, then her head flew back to release a laugh that sounded like the descending trill of a...
Read MoreInto the Great Unknown; The pursuit of mystery in a shared future
This week’s guest columnist is Peter Friederici. When I first moved to Arizona I vowed I would practice restraint. I won’t go there, I thought. Everyone does; it’s too easy, too obvious. Besides, there were any number of other canyons and peaks and desert vistas and high-mountain vales to explore, many of them spectacular, full of adventure, grand-ish. But...
Read MoreIn between storms; Finding reprieve after chaos
This week’s guest columnist is Molly Wood. It is a rainy Tuesday morning in Flagstaff. I sit on the dry side of a coffee shop’s large pane window and watch drops of water traverse the glass, eventually making their way to the ground and from there to the drains along the streets. I watch water collect in puddles and wonder if I am too old to jump in...
Read MoreMourning in America; Of decay and the seed
This week’s guest columnist is Peter Friederici. Even after a decade living here, there’s no way not to notice a train nearing, especially when the diesels are putting out the deep bass rumbling they need to pull 100 cars up the hill going west. The sound fills the backyard, drowning out the birds and the whine of cars and occasional sirens down on...
Read MoreTo the mountain, again and again; Many phases, and many returns
This week’s guest columnist is Naima Schuller. I grew up in Show Low in the 1980s when the population hovered somewhere around 5,500. I felt like I lived in the backwaters of some social wilderness area, designated just for Mormons, Jack Mormons, rednecks and assorted hermits and hippies. Going to Stake Center dances and snipe hunting definitely...
Read MoreRipples in the flow of time; On trying to capture death
A guest post by Peter Friederici The deer out along the tracks has almost entirely vanished. About three months ago it was fresh—if that’s the term for something that smelled like death. Recent death, the kind of odor to provoke a brief shocked worry that I might stumble on one of the transients who come out here to drink or sleep it off. But no, there lay...
Read MoreThe nomad gene; And the allure of the Northland
This guest post is by Tyler Williams, a local writer, photographer and adventurer with several published works under his belt. Check out more of Williams’ work at www.funhogpress.com. Cresting the pass, we squinted, eyes searching for the blue dome of Navajo Mountain. That unmistakable hump hovering beyond the vastness provides me with predictable elation...
Read MoreCounting crows; Back to Eden
This week’s guest columnist is Sue Ellen Norris. Author’s note: Tony Norris is off tracking a song in the Blue River wilderness about the Crooked Trail to Holbrook, so Sue Ellen Norris is keeping the Home fires burning. Sue is a master gardener and works with the Youth Garden Project for Flagstaff Foodlink. She tills the cinder soil at the foot of...
Read MoreIndian Flat; The silence of the storm
This week’s column is by Scott Thybony. Late at night a snowstorm moved across Indian Flat north of the San Francisco Peaks. It was gone by morning, leaving behind a stillness so tangible it woke me up. Looking outside, I saw the pinyon trees buried in white with a foot of new snow filling the cut of the road. Soon I had the fire going and a column...
Read MoreMeltdown: Do you feel lucky?
This week’s post is by Peter Friederici Investment banks and other financial giants have been acting like panicked polar bears drifting too far out on a warming sea, jostling and occasionally cannibalizing one another as they compete for the dwindling space available on their melting ice floe. The carnage is of Biblical proportions: Then, lo!, did...
Read MoreHell of a Bind
This week’s column is by Scott Thybony. No matter how hard things get, most of us know someone who has it even harder. As a writer, I’ve found myself listening to the stories of people who have suffered in ways most of us can’t imagine. Some have been friends and others strangers, people who have survived torture and starvation, slave...
Read MoreRooted
This week’s column is by Scott Thybony. Before heading up the mountain to help brand cattle, I stop at a café on the edge of Flagstaff. Some ranchers are having their morning confab, and the cowboy next to me stares into a cup of coffee nursing a hangover. “What’s that?” asks a man watching something move across the floor. Turning,...
Read MoreA note from Prescott: A former one-woman-show plans her wedding
This week’s column is by Megan Buchanan-Cherry. After having lived very happily in Flagstaff for a number of years, I recently reluctantly moved down tot Prescott when I got engaged. I am no reluctantly engaged, just sad to not be living in Flagstaff anymore. Actually, it was just over one year ago; I’m still in denial, plus I still come...
Read MoreElvis on the Road to Flagstaff
This week’s column is by Scott Thybony. A scrawled note sat in my files for years: “Elvis has vision while crossing Arizona desert,” it stated. No date, no source. But after reading it again I couldn’t shake the idea of Elvis Presley wandering through the desert in a pair of blue suede shoes, searching for God. It didn’t exactly fit...
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