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I read my first John McPhee today: Basin and Range.  While flying over said region, in fact. Now I feel like a fool for not having read his entire oeuvre already. This book includes a sentence I had heard attributed to McPhee – the sort of breathtaking fact that sums up the magnificence of the story he’s telling:

If by some fiat I had to restrict all this writing to one sentence, this is the one I would choose:  The summit of Mt. Everest is marine limestone.

Think on that for a minute. Then read this short but thorough book and think about the wonders of nature in a new way. So much great information, so beautifully told.  His sense of awe comes through and fires mine up very nicely. My wife hauled me out to Utah early in our relationship and in the process made an amateur geologist out of me. I stare in awe every time I fly over the Great Basin, and I treasure every mile I drive and walk when I’m down there in the Grand Staircase, the Escalante, the Grand Canyon; hiking out  to Lower Calf Creek Falls; crossing the San Rafael Swell on I-70 and looking back at the San Rafael Reef as I head for my friends’ house in Castle Valley. or soaking in a mountainside tub at Mystic Hot Springs. The Four Corners region wears the history of life on earth bare-chested in summer and winter; I’ll never grow tired of exploring its wonders, listening for its song, meeting its characters.

From an article titled “Message in Music: Pastor explores spiritual themes in Grateful Dead tunes” by Gretchen Murray, published in the Traverse City (MI) Record-Eagle January 6, 2007:

… 40 years since the group got its start and 12 years after the death of lead guitarist Jerry Garcia silenced their music, some people who didn’t get the message then are revisiting the Grateful Dead and finding a lyrical connection to religion and spirituality. That link is something Pastor Chip Roush of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Grand Traverse discovered. He plans to share it with his congregation in an upcoming three-part series, “Searching for the Sound: The Spirituality of the Grateful Dead.” The worship series begins Jan. 14 with “Fire from the Ice: The Religious Humanism of the Grateful Dead.”

“I use the Grateful Dead as a connective theme for several reasons,” Roush said. “It helps make our religious message relevant and accessible. We can derive wisdom from the Grateful Dead by first realizing that they were not all wasted drug users and secondly, there can be a human approach to religion. Because it comes from a ‘surprising’ source, people may be open to this wisdom in a different way than they would be to the usual Sunday sermon.”

DeadNet is streaming Live at the Cow Palace New Year’s Eve 1976 until 11:59 pm January 1. There’s a photo gallery you can browse while the music is playing.

My little featurette is also available online now. Features the voices of Bob Weir, Donna Jean Godchaux Mackay, KSAN host Glenn Lambert, and fans Paul Israel and Will Shapiro.

Live at the Cow Palace New Year’s Eve 1976 will be released January 23.