Links that may or may not be related to gardens, food, travel, nature, or heterotopias and liminal spaces but probably are. Sources in parentheses.
excerpts: 2024 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest. Dreadful opening sentences to imaginary novels. Such as “Mrs. Higgins’ body was found in the pantry, bludgeoned with a potato ricer and lying atop a fifty-pound sack of Yukon golds, her favorite for making gnocchi, though some people consider them too moist for this purpose.”
long essay: Danger on the Divide: Just because you don’t recognize trouble doesn’t mean it’s not there. (Maggie Slepian/Longreads). “There is no way to enter the woods without any element of danger. A 2,700-mile bike ride has so many potential hazards and built-in discomfort that most people will never attempt it. But if you accumulate enough experience, the Divide doesn’t just seem attainable, it seems pretty reasonable. Not only were the existing dangers not enough to stop us, they were so far outside my realm of reality I didn’t consider anything past wrecking my bike, running into a bear, or missing a water source. In the end, it hadn’t been any of those things.”
photo essay: The art nouveau Winter Garden is a hidden gem in small-town Flanders (The Spaces). Lovely spaces filled with stained glass, sculpture, plants. Built in the village of Onze-Lieve-Vrouw-Waver in 1900 for the Ursuline nuns.
short list: Late-Season Blooming Native Plants (Maine Audubon). Zig-zag Goldenrod (Solidago flexicaulis), Frost Aster (Symphyotrichum pilosum), Coastal Plain Joe-Pye Weed (Eutrochium dubium), Obedient Plant (Physostegia virginiana), Virgin’s Bower (Clematis virginiana). Or any native aster, goldenrod, Joe Pye weed.
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