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An artist who goes around proclaiming that the art he's making is art is probably making a serious mistake. And that's one mistake I try not to make.  — Peter Beard I recently got a copy of Peter Beard : fifty years of portraits / curated by Peter T. Tunney by Beard, Peter H. (Peter Hill), 1938-2020. The whole feeling of his work—photography, handwritten journals, wildlife, travel, found objects, stains, torn paper, memory, sex, danger, and a slightly decadent African-adventurer sensibility---is stirring, an awakening you might say.  Trippy is another word that comes to mind. This  inspired me to read everything I can find about Beard and to study his photographs more closely.   Peter Beard (1938–2020) was a legendary American photographer, artist, and diarist known for his visceral, mixed-media approach to photography. Blending the lines between documentary journalism, fine art, and personal scrapbooking, Beard became famous for chronicling a vanishing Africa, bridging the gap between high-fashion New York culture and the raw realities of environmental collapse.   Beard rarely presented a photograph as just a standalone print. He heavily embellished his images with handwritten text, intricate ink drawings of insects or animals, newspaper clippings, and physical artifacts. Something we would probably generalize as "collage" nowadays, but it is much deeper than that.  For instance, to emphasize the primal nature of life, death, and survival, he frequently used animal blood (and occasionally his own) to paint directly onto the borders and surfaces of his photographs.  Beard viewed his entire life as a singular, continuous artwork. His massive personal journals combined daily travel itineraries with contacts, photos of famous figures, dried leaves, and footprints. Beard's lifelong romance with Africa began after traveling to Kenya in the early 1960s. He

Let me start with a confession:   I’m not a “tactard.” No, that word has nothing to do with tack for your horse, it's an abbreviation of tactical and, well, you can guess the rest.   I shoot a lot, our friends often teach (or have written the books on) cool-guy firearms training classes, and we can run black guns with the best of them. But you won’t find me wandering around in a plate carrier vest or whatever the current equivalent of 5.11 pants happens to be. At this point in my life I’m simply too old to play dress-up, like the bougie hipsters at the range or in the uplands who are taking selfies before they even finish slamming the truck door.   Both have a way of pissing you off before you even get started. That doesn’t mean I dismiss tactical gear. In fact, some of it is remarkably well suited to the way that I spend my time outdoors. I just have little interest in wearing something that makes me look like I’ve been issued a radio and a mission. I spend a lot of time in the field, although I’m usually not talking about packing into the true backcountry for days at a time, at least not anymore. When I’m moving through the woods on foot, for a day trip, I want to carry the essentials without turning myself into a walking gear closet: your favorite piece of iron to spray some lead or a stick to waive in the river, a few basic tools like a leatherman, a decent light, maybe some boots for the dogs, some water, and, preferably, something to eat. I like snacks. What constitutes “essential” changes considerably

Leave your ghosts in the dust and they will only learn to chase you. True freedom isn't found in the distance you run, but in the peace you make when you finally turn around. We can be our own worst enemies sometimes when we dwell in the past about people in our lives that we wish were different, things we wish hadn’t happened, things we regret, or wish we had done differently. But nothing in your past dictates what can happen next in your life - unless you allow it to with your thoughts about the past. What happens next in your life depends on what you are thinking right now. Your tomorrow, your week ahead, this month, and this year, is all in your hands right now. Isn’t that a relief? No matter what has happened before now, this moment you have the power to make every day of your life from here better! Make your amazingly powerful thoughts positive, make your thoughts about what you want your life to be - and that’s all you have to do.

DHARMA   The way the dog trots out the front door every morning without a hat or an umbrella, without any money or the keys to her dog house never fails to fill the saucer of my heart with milky admiration.   Who provides a finer example of a life without encumbrance- Thoreau in his curtainless hut with a single plate, a single spoon? Gandhi with his staff and his wire spectacles?   Off she goes into the material world with nothing but her brown coat and her modest blue collar, following only her wet nose, the twin portals of her steady breathing, followed only by the plume of her tail.   If only she did not shove the cat aside every morning and eat all his food what a model of self-containment she would be, what a paragon of earthly detachment. If only she were not so eager for a rub behind the ears, so acrobatic in her welcomes, if only I were not her god.

I have an Italian friend who upon watching me cook for several days, once asked, "Why do you have to make everything formal?    Just because it’s formal, doesn’t mean it’s better."   It was a fair question.   And a fair observation. When a French chef is presented with a beautiful cut of meat or a fresh catch, their first instinct is often one of transformation. They might ask, "What can I do with this? How can I elevate it, enhance it, and create an impressive, complex dish?" It is a philosophy rooted in technique, layers of flavor, and the pursuit of culinary artistry. In contrast, an Italian chef looks at the same ingredients and seeks simplicity. Their thought process is more likely to be, "This fish is perfect. Perhaps just a little olive oil, a squeeze of lemon, and some fresh herbs are all it needs." The Italian approach is one of reverence for the ingredient itself, allowing its natural flavors to shine without unnecessary interference. While both traditions have evolved and these are certainly generalizations, there remains a beautiful truth in this contrast: one seeks to master the ingredient, while the other seeks to honor it. Whether you prefer the intricate artistry of the French kitchen or the rustic soul of Italian cooking, both offer a masterclass in how we relate to the food we eat.

There is an older Maui hiding just beyond the beaches.  Leave Pāʻia behind and head uphill toward Haʻikū and Makawao. The road winds through a landscape of enormous trees, green valleys and old agricultural fields. Houses appear behind walls and gardens, some elegant, some weathered, many seemingly ordinary. But this is old plantation country, and beneath the tropical beauty is a story that changed Maui forever. Sugar arrived here in the middle of the nineteenth century. By the 1860s, plantations were being established around Haʻikū, and in 1870 Samuel Thomas Alexander and Henry Perrine Baldwin began developing what would become Pāʻia Plantation and, eventually, Alexander & Baldwin.  The problem was water. The slopes of Haleakalā received abundant rain, while the agricultural land farther down toward Pāʻia was considerably drier. The solution was audacious: build an irrigation system that would carry water from the wet mountains down to the sugar fields. Miles of ditches transformed the landscape. With water came sugar, and with sugar came a town. Pāʻia grew around its mill, which began operating in 1880. What developed was not simply a plantation but an entire community. Stores, schools, churches, theaters, medical facilities and plantation camps appeared around the mill. Workers arrived from Japan, the Philippines, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Korea and elsewhere. Each community brought its own traditions, food, religion and architecture. Much of the character of modern Maui can be traced to these plantation years.  The wealthier side of that world survives, too. Above Pāʻia and toward Haʻikū are the old residences of plantation managers and owners, surrounded by the kind of vegetation that makes everything look as though it has been there forever. Haʻikū House, associated with Henry Baldwin, dates to the 1880s. An older cottage on the

Marilyn Monroe was unquestionably a style icon, but what makes her interesting is that her influence went beyond simply wearing beautiful clothes. She helped create a visual language of American glamour that is still being copied more than six decades after her death.  The important distinction is that Marilyn's style was partly created for her and partly created by her.  The mistake is to think Marilyn's style consisted entirely of gowns and cleavage. While polo matches were high-society staples in mid-century Hollywood—frequently held at places like the Will Rogers Polo Club in Pacific Palisades or the Riviera Country Club—Marilyn Monroe was not part of that circuit.  A few common points of confusion often lead people to associate Monroe with polo or similar sporting events.   She did have some scenes with horses over the years (her choice of footwear makes it obvious that this was not a familiar hobby).   However, Monroe was famously a regular guest at The Beverly Hills Hotel (living in Bungalow 1 and Bungalow 7 at different points) and frequently spent time in its iconic Polo Lounge, which features classic equestrian polo imagery.  So, my imagination is left wondering what she would have worn to a polo match.   Surely something timeless and classic like the capri outfit below, but less than the formal gowns that she was famously and fabulously often photographed wearing. One of her most famous cinematic lines about polo comes from a scene aboard a borrowed yacht in Some Like It Hot (1959), when her character, Sugar Kane, talks with Tony Curtis (whose character was trying to impress her and was impersonating a Shell Oil heir): Sugar: "Water polo! Isn't that terribly dangerous?" Junior: "I'll say. Two ponies drowned under

Pandemic Peak and Stabilization: Across national and regional auctions (such as the Colorado Horse Sale), horse prices skyrocketed during the pandemic as demand surged. A mediocre lesson horse that might have sold for $8,000 in 2019 jumped to roughly $18,000 by 2021.  Today's Averages: Prices have corrected slightly from that absolute frenzy, but they have not returned to pre-pandemic levels. Safe, trained recreational horses ("good amateur horses") now consistently command between $15,000 and $22,000. Buyers operating on a historical mindset—expecting a safe, broke horse for $5,000 to $6,000—find that budget only covers animals with major quirks or training gaps.

“Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s need, but not every man’s greed.”  ~Mahatma Gandhi There is something deceptively simple in Gandhi’s observation. The earth gives us an extraordinary abundance. Food, water, timber, game, fish, horses, gardens, mountains, rivers, open country. It gives us the raw materials for both survival and pleasure. What it cannot provide is an end to wanting.  Perhaps that is the distinction worth remembering: need has a limit. Want does not. A day in the field has a way of making this point obvious. You walk a ridge at first light, a dog working ahead through the sparse cover of windswept prairie grass and cheatgrass, and for a few hours the notifications from the machinery of modern life that we carry in our pocket become irrelevant.  In fact sometimes those notifications get in the way of enjoying your experience outside, so if I have cell coverage, I often turn the phone to silent.   You are left thinking about the direction of wind, the dog's effort to quarter through the field leaving nothing uncovered, the anticipation of finding birds,  and the dew on the ground beneath your boots.  The view is often rewarding, as is the physical and mental calculations needed to be successful, but more than anything it creates a situation where you are forced to just be---just living in the moment.   Even if the hunt is successful, the reward is not measured by how much game meat you brought home. One bird can be enough. Sometimes the real prize is simply having been there and the stories that are made through these experiences in the natural world. The same is true around a table. A well-prepared meal does not require