What makes my thumbs different from yours

When I open my hands palms-down in front of me, I see two little mounds — calluses — in the Vs between thumbs and forefingers. I think of these parts of my hands as oar locks, where the shaft of my kayak paddle — the pole-y part between the flat paddle blades — rotates in my [...]

The Los Angeles Review and Bat Thumbs

The Los Angeles Review’s website has finally, with newborn wings, flown the nest. Fly with it. The Fall 2009 Issue, No. 6, will be released into the wild Nov. 1. *
Speaking of wings, bats have them. They also have a short curved claw called a “bat thumb.” Along with the bat’s toes, the bat thumb helps the [...]

Thumb-a-vision

Tibetan Buddhist monks of the 9th or 10th centuries used spells to learn prophecies, to wrest power from demons, find treasure, cure illness, tame wild beasts, cause springs to gurgle from the ground, and other such everyday needs.
One such spell, recorded in a monk’s ritual manual*, describes a kind of divination that invokes a deity to answer [...]

Like spinach?

Blogging, like spinach, liver, and weight-bearing exercise, is good for you. I’m not big on liver, but I’m awright with weight-bearing exercise, and I looove spinach. Where, then, do I stand with blogging? I’ve been asking myself that a lot lately. Asking asking asking. Asking asking asking. Asking asking asking. Hooboy, that’s a whole lot of [...]

Ben Bachelder, Digihitch.com contributor, interviewed by NY Times

I met Bass Drum Ben, so-called because he played in the UC Berkeley marching band, on a roadtrip to Slab City. We drove from Santa Monica to California’s Colorado Desert, south of Coachella and east of the Salton Sea. We were part of a group creating and documenting the Hitchhiker Tribute Cairn, a memorial mound of [...]

Five raccoons on the roof

This morning, we woke to the pitter patter of little feet — 20 little feet. Five raccoons had made our roof an aerial super-highway after using their almost-human-like hands to pull up the grasses in our pond. That’s 10 little thumbs (not fully opposable thumbs) out wreaking aquatic havoc. I have no photos of the roof-rambling [...]

Thumb enchanted evening …

I’m back from Thesisland, and ready to renew my  navel-gazing quest, only with my thumbs. Big News! I graduated on August 22 with a Master of Fine Arts in creative nonfiction. That means the journey has changed. Where The Thumb of All Parts was once an MFA thesis, it is now a book.
Stand by for some things [...]

OMG, par-T in NYC w/LG

I’m using a pen and paper to write about the National Texting Championship in New York City on July 9, 2008, at the Roseland Ballroom, a few doors down from the theater where the musical “Hairspray” is performed. The contestants, mostly teens and young twenty-somethings are standing behind a tape pounding thunder sticks with LG [...]

Welcome to the human race: thumbs optional

Meet Ralph Dunbebin. His close friends call him Stubbs. Born without thumbs, as well as a few fingers on each hand, he has dedicated his own blog to thumb-free people worldwide:  http://www.thumbs-suck.com/

Impressions of Keji

“Harlooloo loo loo loo. I’m here. I’m here. Are you? Are you?”
Out there, somewhere, a loon calls across the swells of a lake dark as a cup of high-test tea even in broad daylight. Frozen Ocean Lake.
Its dark waters pool within Kejimkujik National Park and National Historic Site. Keji, as the locals call [...]