Geoff Wisner
@geoffwisner.bsky.social
Author of A Basket of Leaves (2007). Editor of African Lives (2013), Thoreau's Wildflowers (2016), Thoreau's Animals (2017), A Year of Birds (2024), and George Templeton Strong: Civil War Diaries (January 2026!).
...and not just because she says nice things about my "Six Reasons to Vote No."* You don't have to have watched Corinne's three previous videos to understand the points she makes in this one.
*There would have been more reasons if not for the 250-word limit.
*There would have been more reasons if not for the 250-word limit.
November 28, 2025 at 4:44 PM
...and not just because she says nice things about my "Six Reasons to Vote No."* You don't have to have watched Corinne's three previous videos to understand the points she makes in this one.
*There would have been more reasons if not for the 250-word limit.
*There would have been more reasons if not for the 250-word limit.
Nobody knew what the people on the stage were supposed to be doing & nobody cared to enquire. The grand feature of this specimen of the Lyric Drama & of “High” old “Art” is a white goat — a real live goat — that trots across the stage now & then & is watched by the audience with keen interest.
November 27, 2025 at 3:43 PM
Nobody knew what the people on the stage were supposed to be doing & nobody cared to enquire. The grand feature of this specimen of the Lyric Drama & of “High” old “Art” is a white goat — a real live goat — that trots across the stage now & then & is watched by the audience with keen interest.
George Templeton Strong, Nov. 27, 1862. Thursday. Thanksgiving Day. Academy of Music last night with D’Oremieulx & Mrs D. who dined here. Opera was Meyerbeer’s Dinorah. It’s idiocy & imbecility, as a dramatic work, are amazing, but not much below the usual operatic standard.
November 27, 2025 at 3:43 PM
George Templeton Strong, Nov. 27, 1862. Thursday. Thanksgiving Day. Academy of Music last night with D’Oremieulx & Mrs D. who dined here. Opera was Meyerbeer’s Dinorah. It’s idiocy & imbecility, as a dramatic work, are amazing, but not much below the usual operatic standard.
Thoreau, Nov. 27, 1852. Almost an Indian-summer day. The shrub oaks and the sprouts make woods you can look down on. They are now our rustling gardens. [Photo Adobe Stock]
November 27, 2025 at 3:40 PM
Thoreau, Nov. 27, 1852. Almost an Indian-summer day. The shrub oaks and the sprouts make woods you can look down on. They are now our rustling gardens. [Photo Adobe Stock]
Nov. 26, 1857. Minott's is a small, square, one-storied and unpainted house, with a hipped roof and at least one dormer-window, a third the way up the south side of a long hill which is some fifty feet high and extends east and west. [Not Minott's house and not a hipped roof, but you get the idea.]
November 26, 2025 at 4:10 PM
Nov. 26, 1857. Minott's is a small, square, one-storied and unpainted house, with a hipped roof and at least one dormer-window, a third the way up the south side of a long hill which is some fifty feet high and extends east and west. [Not Minott's house and not a hipped roof, but you get the idea.]
Thoreau, Nov. 25, 1850. There is a beautiful fine wild grass which grows in the path in sprout land, now dry, white, and waving, in light beds soft to the touch.
[Bottlebrush grass, Elymus hystrix, is one species of wild grass that will regrow on burned land. Photo Johnson's Nursery.]
[Bottlebrush grass, Elymus hystrix, is one species of wild grass that will regrow on burned land. Photo Johnson's Nursery.]
November 25, 2025 at 1:00 PM
Thoreau, Nov. 25, 1850. There is a beautiful fine wild grass which grows in the path in sprout land, now dry, white, and waving, in light beds soft to the touch.
[Bottlebrush grass, Elymus hystrix, is one species of wild grass that will regrow on burned land. Photo Johnson's Nursery.]
[Bottlebrush grass, Elymus hystrix, is one species of wild grass that will regrow on burned land. Photo Johnson's Nursery.]
Yesterday at Central Park.
November 25, 2025 at 11:18 AM
Yesterday at Central Park.
...small heads of yellowish-white down, compact and regular as a thimble beneath, but, at this time, diffusive and bursting forth above, somewhat like a little torch with its flame, a very neat object! [Photos Old Dairy Nursey, Mary Holland]
November 24, 2025 at 11:51 AM
...small heads of yellowish-white down, compact and regular as a thimble beneath, but, at this time, diffusive and bursting forth above, somewhat like a little torch with its flame, a very neat object! [Photos Old Dairy Nursey, Mary Holland]
It was some compensation for Commodore Porter, who may have introduced some cannon-balls and bombshells into ports where they were not wanted, to have introduced the Valparaiso squash into the United States. I think that this eclipses his military glory.
November 23, 2025 at 10:41 AM
It was some compensation for Commodore Porter, who may have introduced some cannon-balls and bombshells into ports where they were not wanted, to have introduced the Valparaiso squash into the United States. I think that this eclipses his military glory.
Thoreau, Nov. 22, 1858. About the first of November a wild pig from the West, said to weigh three hundred pounds, jumped out of a car at the depot and made for the woods.
November 22, 2025 at 3:55 PM
Thoreau, Nov. 22, 1858. About the first of November a wild pig from the West, said to weigh three hundred pounds, jumped out of a car at the depot and made for the woods.
They have a mewing note which reminds me of a canary-bird. They make very good forerunners of winter. Is it not the ruby-crowned wren? (Lesser redpoll.) [Art by Barry Van Dusen]
November 21, 2025 at 1:04 AM
They have a mewing note which reminds me of a canary-bird. They make very good forerunners of winter. Is it not the ruby-crowned wren? (Lesser redpoll.) [Art by Barry Van Dusen]
Thoreau, Nov. 21, 1852. The commonest bird I see and hear nowadays is that little red crowned or fronted bird I described the 13th. I hear now more music from them.
November 21, 2025 at 1:04 AM
Thoreau, Nov. 21, 1852. The commonest bird I see and hear nowadays is that little red crowned or fronted bird I described the 13th. I hear now more music from them.
Thoreau, Nov. 20, 1853. I hear a single hylodes [tree frog] in the wood by the water, while I am raking the cranberries. This warmth has aroused him. While raking, I disturbed two bullfrogs, one quite small. These, too, the warm weather has perhaps aroused. They appear rather stupid.
November 20, 2025 at 1:57 PM
Thoreau, Nov. 20, 1853. I hear a single hylodes [tree frog] in the wood by the water, while I am raking the cranberries. This warmth has aroused him. While raking, I disturbed two bullfrogs, one quite small. These, too, the warm weather has perhaps aroused. They appear rather stupid.
Thoreau, Nov. 19, 1857. In Stow's sprout-land west of railroad cut, I see where a mouse which has a hole under a stump has eaten out clean the insides of the little Prinos verticillatus [winterberry] berries.... [Harvest mouse with rose hips, Shutterstock]
November 19, 2025 at 2:57 PM
Thoreau, Nov. 19, 1857. In Stow's sprout-land west of railroad cut, I see where a mouse which has a hole under a stump has eaten out clean the insides of the little Prinos verticillatus [winterberry] berries.... [Harvest mouse with rose hips, Shutterstock]
Nov. 18, 1851. Deacon Brown told me to-day of a tall, raw-boned fellow by the name of Hosmer who used to help draw the seine behind the Jones house, who once, when he had hauled it without getting a single shad, held up a little perch in sport above his face, to show what he had got.
November 18, 2025 at 11:56 AM
Nov. 18, 1851. Deacon Brown told me to-day of a tall, raw-boned fellow by the name of Hosmer who used to help draw the seine behind the Jones house, who once, when he had hauled it without getting a single shad, held up a little perch in sport above his face, to show what he had got.
Thanks to Ellen Kushner for finding this!
November 18, 2025 at 11:39 AM
Thanks to Ellen Kushner for finding this!
Borrowed from the Robert Crumb Fan Club.
November 17, 2025 at 10:33 PM
Borrowed from the Robert Crumb Fan Club.
If things had gone a little differently, Thoreau's life might have ended two years earlier than it did...
Nov. 17, 1860. How they do things in West Acton. As we were walking through West Acton the other afternoon, a few rods only west of the centre, on the main road, the Harvard turnpike,
Nov. 17, 1860. How they do things in West Acton. As we were walking through West Acton the other afternoon, a few rods only west of the centre, on the main road, the Harvard turnpike,
November 17, 2025 at 1:17 PM
If things had gone a little differently, Thoreau's life might have ended two years earlier than it did...
Nov. 17, 1860. How they do things in West Acton. As we were walking through West Acton the other afternoon, a few rods only west of the centre, on the main road, the Harvard turnpike,
Nov. 17, 1860. How they do things in West Acton. As we were walking through West Acton the other afternoon, a few rods only west of the centre, on the main road, the Harvard turnpike,
Thoreau, Nov. 16, 1850. What shall we do with a man who is afraid of the woods, their solitude and darkness? What salvation is there for him? God is silent and mysterious.
November 16, 2025 at 4:50 PM
Thoreau, Nov. 16, 1850. What shall we do with a man who is afraid of the woods, their solitude and darkness? What salvation is there for him? God is silent and mysterious.
Thinking of becoming a Library of America member? Do it now and get one of the first copies of my new book George Templeton Strong: Civil War Diaries! submemb.loa.org/join-library...
November 16, 2025 at 2:17 PM
Thinking of becoming a Library of America member? Do it now and get one of the first copies of my new book George Templeton Strong: Civil War Diaries! submemb.loa.org/join-library...
The recent growth on the outside, half an inch in width, was a sort of tea-green or bluish-green color.
November 15, 2025 at 2:06 PM
The recent growth on the outside, half an inch in width, was a sort of tea-green or bluish-green color.
It formed a perfect circle about fifteen inches in diameter though the rock was uneven, and was handsomely shaded by a darker stripe of older leaves, an inch or more wide, just within its circumference, like a rich lamp-mat.
November 15, 2025 at 2:06 PM
It formed a perfect circle about fifteen inches in diameter though the rock was uneven, and was handsomely shaded by a darker stripe of older leaves, an inch or more wide, just within its circumference, like a rich lamp-mat.
Nov. 15, 1850. I saw to-day a very perfect lichen on a rock in a meadow.
November 15, 2025 at 2:06 PM
Nov. 15, 1850. I saw to-day a very perfect lichen on a rock in a meadow.
Thoreau, Nov. 14, 1851. In the evening went to a party. It is a bad place to go to, thirty or forty persons, mostly young women, in a small room, warm and noisy. Was introduced to two young women. [Husking party by Winslow Homer, 1858]
November 14, 2025 at 3:16 PM
Thoreau, Nov. 14, 1851. In the evening went to a party. It is a bad place to go to, thirty or forty persons, mostly young women, in a small room, warm and noisy. Was introduced to two young women. [Husking party by Winslow Homer, 1858]