[Silverbelle C. Jane Taylor's memoir Spirit Traffic should be on the bookshelf of every great ape. You can buy a copy here: https://cjanetaylor.com/product/spirit-traffic/ Jane also sends a weekly "Love Letter" to her followers. She'll send one to you if you sign up https://cjanetaylor.com/contact-jane/ . It's free and it's fun. Her most recent missive really makes... Continue Reading →
The Outside Story Suggested headline: The Canada Goose Migration: A Grand Spectacle of Nature By Susan Shea Word count: 780 The musical honking of Canada geese and their V-shaped flocks streaming overhead are classic signs of autumn. I hear the clamor of geese as they fly low over my house, preparing to land in the... Continue Reading →
[By The Numbers was a regular feature in Green Living Journal. Not long ago we revealed the many uses of coffee grounds. This sent me back into the archives to see if there might be some useful information for readers of Silverback Digest. Here's what I found in the spring issue of 2014. SB SM]... Continue Reading →
Today's encore selection -- from Serve It Forth by M.F.K. Fisher. In medieval Europe, royal banquets were held to celebrate extraordinary guests. These guests were honored with "subtleties," which were elaborate food displays made of sugar and other food items commemorating the character or achievements of those guests. To highlight these subtleties, they were paraded in front of... Continue Reading →
["Extra-Ordinary" is the title of my never-finished, never-published memoir, or is it an autobiography? The title is a play on the word extraordinary, which denotes something anything but ordinary. By putting in the hyphen my intent is to communicate that the only thing exceptional about my life is that it has been ordinary to the... Continue Reading →
[This being Valentine's Day Week, we're focusing on sugary topics. Silverback Mark (Pill Hill SBs) shared his color-coordinated Zoom background with others SBs. My comment ... "Not enough Morris-colored titles, although I approve to the company I am keeping." SB SM] Today's encore selection -- from Citizen Coke: The Making of Coca-Cola Capitalism by Bartow J. Elmore. As... Continue Reading →
[In honor of Valentine's Day, we're devoting this entire week to the subject of sweetness. SB SM] An anthropologist explains the evolutionary origins of why so many people seem practically programmed to love sugar. By STEPHEN WOODING 4 JAN 2023 THE SWEETNESS OF SUGAR is one of life’s great pleasures. People’s love for sweet is so... Continue Reading →
[Why, as a species, do we keep being stupid in the same way? Wouldn't you think that after our ruinous fling with nuclear power we would ask "Duh, what happens if we run out of lithium? Duh, what do we do with the used batteries once they are depleted? Duh, how do we maintain our... Continue Reading →
[Do you enjoy your Silverback Digest while sipping your morning coffee, reheated in the microwave after sitting overnight in your unwashed cup? I do, thank you very much. SB SM] When Coffee Is Like Angel Cake With Strawberry Jam An anthropologist delves into the rarefied ritualistic world of specialty coffee, where highly trained brewers and... Continue Reading →
An archaeologist explains how new evidence stands to change what we thought about how ice age humans prepared food. This article was originally published at The Conversation, January 11, 2023 and has been republished with Creative Commons. WE HUMANS CAN’T STOP playing with our food. Just think of all the different ways of serving potatoes—entire books... Continue Reading →
