In 2017, Donna Seger, a history professor at Salem State University (Massachusetts) wrote an open letter to the leadership of the Peabody Essex Museum, a big, rich institution in downtown Salem that along with being a major art museum, controls … Continue reading
On August 3, 2018 Jason Mankey posted his list of the “25 Most Influential Living Pagans” on his blog—a good list, but slanted toward the English-speaking world (the “Anglosphere”). On August 10, Jaime Girónes responded at The Wild Hunt with … Continue reading
Just a post-postscript to my earlier series of posts about witchcraft and Salem, Mass. We tend to phrase the story of the 1690s as Puritans hunting “witches,” and it is true that members of the Puritan churches set the moral … Continue reading
A month ago I blogged how astonished M. and I were to see that Kakawa, the Santa Fe-based chocolate house, was about to open a new store in Salem, Mass. Imagine our surprise to see this storefront on Essex Street … Continue reading
My April 25th post said, “The Southwest Follows Us to Salem & Salem Follows Us Home.” That has not stopped. Yesterday I stepped into the Goodwill store in Pueblo, Colorado to buy some of their 99¢ wineglasses for daily use. … Continue reading
The last time that I walked through the Salem witch trials memorial adjacent to the Charter Street cemetery, I saw that someone had left a rolled-up paper at John Proctor’s memorial bench.((No one ever seems to sit on the benches, … Continue reading
What Bourbon Street is to New Orleans’ French Quarter, Essex Street is to Salem, Mass. When it’s party time (October), this is where the party happens. Otherwise, it is the chief tourist-commercial street, whether you want the Peabody Essex Museum, … Continue reading
A century and a half after the Salem witch trials, they still lived in the mind of a young Salem writer, Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–1864). From his fiancee’s window, if he had a good arm, he could have thrown an ink … Continue reading
Read Part 1 here. Once there was a dirt road, the “Boston road,” that ran beside a pond on the way out of Salem. (Now it is called Boston Street.) Then there came a railroad, and a shoe factory, and … Continue reading
I left our Salem apartment last Thursday to walk to the site, but what people used to think was the site is not the site. In fact, the true location, which was of course known at the time and remembered … Continue reading