Jonathan Erdman, indie writer | stories and scattered scribbles

Will protests stop Trump?

by Jonathan Erdman

My time is winding down here in McCarthy, and so I’m trying to enjoy the last week of my time in Alaska, which isn’t hard to do with all the September sunshine, a welcome relief after an Angry August of rain and cold. It’s also easy to enjoy the time here because as more and more folks disperse in the annual Alaska diaspora, the...

September 14, 2018

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Ideas & Short Essays

A heck of a word

by Jonathan Erdman

It’s getting a bit cold in my tent, these September mornings. I wake up, I feel a blast of cold air hitting my face as my head pokes itself out from my cocoon of sleeping bag and blankets, and then I glance at the thermometer next to my bed. If it shows 40 degrees or higher, it’s a warm morning. Needless to say, I’m...

September 8, 2018

Comments 2

Current Events and Scattered Scribbles

Glacier hiking in the dog days of summer

A few years back, before coming to McCarthy, I worked a two summers in Glacier Bay National Park. The...

by Jonathan Erdman

Trippy Light

My inhibitions, fighting my intuition Premature premonition Showin me the demolition of these phony niggas So ahead of my...

by Jonathan Erdman

Shut down for repairs

I’m 48 hours into my fast. It’s been 2 days since I last ate. That leaves another 24-30 hours...

by Jonathan Erdman

Getting high again

It was a bit spontaneous, but I decided to hike Bonanza trail. I cheated and drove a wheeler up...

by Jonathan Erdman

Happy Independence Day!

Like most little Alaskan bush communities, we celebrate the Fourth of July with great gusto. We’ve got creative floats...

by Jonathan Erdman

Fire Dancing at Solstice – McCarthy Alaska 2018

There’s epic mountains and breaching whales and raging rivers and scary bears and grizzled men with beards, but one...

by Jonathan Erdman

Let that shit go

I have an office job at a small lodge in remote Alaska, and one of the hats I wear...

by Jonathan Erdman

No worse for the wear on McCarthy Creek

The bar is set a bit higher in Alaska, so far as rating trails is concerned. A hike rated...

by Jonathan Erdman

That Tent Life

Plans change and housing conditions get rearranged — such is often the nature of life in my Alaskan bush...

by Jonathan Erdman

Mountain Lion, plus an all around life update

I’m a little sluggish on posting Alaska pics. I’ve been up north now for a month, but I haven’t...

by Jonathan Erdman

McCarthy, Alaska: A people-friendly dog town

“I’ve never seen so many dogs in one town, and, you know, where there’s no problem or anything.” ~...

by Jonathan Erdman

North to Alaska

The annual trek up to Alaska is rapidly approaching, less than a week away. This will be my ninth...

by Jonathan Erdman

September 14, 2018

Will protests stop Trump?

My time is winding down here in McCarthy, and so I’m trying to enjoy the last week of my...

by Jonathan Erdman

Communion

This summer I’ve turned more attention to blogging, and I’ve started phazing out Facebook. In the process I’ve been...

by Jonathan Erdman

Phazing Out Facebook

“I’m off the book,” says my friend Scott. We stand together on the porch of the Golden Saloon, drinking...

by Jonathan Erdman

This is why the Gospel is political

It’s extremely weird, in retrospect, but in my evangelical circles no one ever really talked about Martin Luther King,...

by Jonathan Erdman

Republican Peter King compares NFL protests to ‘players giving Nazi ...

One way that racism persists in America is that non-Whites are not permitted to interpret their own experiences. White...

by Jonathan Erdman

The Quotable Trump

The Trumpification of the English language: “For instance, I went to Russia for a day or so, a day...

by Jonathan Erdman

Happy Birthday, Karl Marx — you were right

Marx’s 200th birthday was two days ago. With two centuries in the can, I’d be interested to hear what...

by Jonathan Erdman

Facebook: Regulate and Share The Wealth?

Quite the fascinating article today by Chris Hughes, one of the group of plucky young Harvard students who founded...

by Jonathan Erdman

Feelin the Bern as teacher strikes and protests continue

by Jonathan Erdman

Mister Zuck goes to Washington

So pundits and politicians are up in arms about Facebook exposing our data. My question: what did we expect,...

by Jonathan Erdman

Teachers Strike…in The Twilight Zone

So teachers are striking, apparently they want a living wage or something. In any event, it raises a few...

by Jonathan Erdman

“Not a puppet, not a puppet”

No one wants to be a cog in the machine. That’s one of the values that we post-Baby Boomers...

by Jonathan Erdman

Cloud Atlas (film, 2012)

It was the end of my summer season working Glacier Bay National Park, which puts it sometime circa 2012...

by Jonathan Erdman

Beloved by Toni Morrison

On the surface, the novel Beloved seems like literature that makes us more aware of the brutality of slavery...

by Jonathan Erdman

Yuval Noah Harari: Brexit will not halt drive to ‘human unification’

I’m looking forward to Yuval Harari’s new book, set to be released this August. I’m a big fan of...

by Jonathan Erdman

Happy Belated Tax Day! “We Absolutely Blew It!”

John Oliver had a fantastic bit on taxes, and I meant to post it on April 15th. I forgot,...

by Jonathan Erdman

Audre Lorde: no such thing as a single-issue struggle

Wisdom on unity and diversity, in the struggle for civil rights, by Audre Lorde, Learning from the 60s February...

by Jonathan Erdman

Myths of the old gods

Pretty much the entire Make America Great Again narrative is driven by the “American Way,” by a sense of...

by Jonathan Erdman

Clayton Bigsby and the artificial construct of race

In his book, Invisible Man Got the Whole World Watching (2016), Mychal Denzel Smith discusses one of the skits from...

by Jonathan Erdman

The Eichmann Show (2015)

The Eichmann Show is a BBC production currently airing on Netflix. It’s 1961 and Israeli agents have captured Adolf...

by Jonathan Erdman

Every Love Story Is a Ghost Story: A Life of David Foster Wallace (2012)

I recently finished Every Loves Story is A Ghost Story, a biography of David Foster Wallace. It was one...

by Jonathan Erdman

February 16, 2018

Why ‘Black Panther’ Is a Defining Moment for Black America | Carvell Wallace, The...

I made a rare appearance at the theater last night, and rarer still, I purchased my favorite salty-sweet combination...

by Jonathan Erdman

February 13, 2018

Talking Trump: Trust me everyone’s talking about it, and believe me it’s...

There is a fine article in the The Atlantic. It’s a very fine article in the very fine magazine...

by Jonathan Erdman

February 6, 2018

On writing: Giving your laughter a bit of weight

I finished the first installment of David Sedaris’ diaries a few months back. I would only recommend it to...

by Jonathan Erdman

This is why the Gospel is political

It’s extremely weird, in retrospect, but in my evangelical circles no one ever really talked about Martin Luther King,...

by Jonathan Erdman

Emerging from the dish pit, no worse for the wear

The North Fork Vipassana Meditation Center is located in the foothills of the Sierras, just south of Yosemite. Not...

by Jonathan Erdman

January 29, 2018

Tribal Survival: The central, simple insight on why Evangelicals stand by Trump

I grew up Evangelical, in the Nineties. For me this meant being very aware that I was a central...

by Jonathan Erdman

January 24, 2018

Finding the key, searching the darkness

I came across this intriguing Sufi story while reading Jenny Diski’s memoir, In Gratitude. Here it is: A Mulla...

by Jonathan Erdman

November 16, 2017

Yuval Harari, author of “Sapiens,” on AI, religion, and 60-day meditation ...

I thought I’d share an excellent interview by the author of my current favorite book, Sapiens: A brief history...

by Jonathan Erdman

November 9, 2017

On the seventh day, he farted

There were more farts during group meditations than I can remember from any prior retreat, and from time to...

by Jonathan Erdman

November 3, 2017

Meditation retreat: it’s all about the eats

Eating while on retreat is probably the thing I most look forward to each day. Probably most mediators do,...

by Jonathan Erdman

November 1, 2017

Why is it so fucking hard to sit still? A few more thoughts

One thing that I remind myself as I meditate on retreat is that meditation is biological. For all the...

by Jonathan Erdman

September 8, 2018

A heck of a word

It’s getting a bit cold in my tent, these September mornings. I wake up, I feel a blast of...

by Jonathan Erdman

September 6, 2018

The New York Times Drops Shocking Anonymous Op-Ed

This is either a watershed moment of Watergate proportions, or else someone just pulled off a satirical prank of...

by Jonathan Erdman

September 1, 2018

Don’t hate the player…

“I’ve worked in Ukraine, Iraq, I’ve worked in deeply corrupt countries, and [the American] system isn’t very different.” —...

by Jonathan Erdman

August 29, 2018

Trademarking LOL? WTF?

Procter & Gamble, the household products company, has applied to trademark acronyms common in textspeak including “LOL” and “WTF”…....

by Jonathan Erdman

A piece of Alaskan paradise is at risk | Kim Heacox

I want to pass along a great opinion piece that ran in the Guardian a few days back, written...

by Jonathan Erdman

Medicare-for-All: We’ve got the momentum (Just ask Fox & Friends)

Americans may be pre-programmed to fear the s-word, but what happens you pitch socialist ideas, like Medicare-for-All? What happens...

by Jonathan Erdman

“That Jim is full of piss and vinegar”

It was encouraging to read about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders visiting Wichita, Kansas, for a massive rally in...

by Jonathan Erdman

Faceplant

Facebook took a hit on the stock market, like big time, record setting stuff. I’d like to take credit...

by Jonathan Erdman