The Cambias Digression

Earlier today I was at the memorial service for David Hartwell. It has been a week since he died, and in that week I have read a number of tributes, some heartbreaking, some funny, from his family and people who knew him for decades. I knew David for less than twenty years. I can't remember…

Maybe it's because I grew up in Louisiana. Pumpkin pie was not a common dessert when I was a kid. At Thanksgiving we ate pecan pie, and I remember my grandmother making sweet potato pie a few times. I heard of Pumpkin pie, from the song "Over the River and Through the Woods" or various…

Piglet has on rare occasions whispered disjointed and irresponsible things about what he saw in the Heffalump trap: "the empty jar", "the fawn-colored fluff", "the nameless cylinder", "the condensated milk", "the primal gold jelly", "the West Pole", "the eyes in the darkness", "the very bouncy animal", "the Thing of Little Brain" and other bizarre conceptions;…

For half a century, music was the badge of hipness. What you listened to determined if you were a cool, enlightened person or not. Clothing, hair styles, taste in movies, political opinions — these all had a role, but ultimately music trumped everything. You could be the coolest kid in high school with all the…