Best of Pluck

Thomas Pluck
Jul 18, 2023
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A curated selection of the archives for your perusal and delight

Gilgamesh and What is Best in Life

Thomas Pluck
·
August 4, 2022
Gilgamesh and What is Best in Life

I was not prepared for Gilgamesh. Stephen Mitchell’s new English Version is to the epic what Dr Emily Wilson’s translation of The Odyssey was for it; a wonderful telling that brings life to the ancient tale by digging deep into the words to remove modern prejudices. I can’t recommend it enough.

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Keep on Happying

Thomas Pluck
·
December 13, 2023
Keep on Happying

Some days you can’t win. And sometimes those days come all in a row. I had a low streak last week, and I can’t even put my finger on how or why. I was stressed out, even though I finished a big project at work early and had a little time to catch up. Maybe it was the holiday season, or the reality of cold dark mornings of winter setting in, or paying to…

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Souls Tourne Apart

Thomas Pluck
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November 19, 2023
Souls Tourne Apart

One of the things I love about living in New Jersey is that despite having lived here for five decades, I keep discovering interesting places that I didn’t know about. One was the Nothnagle Log Cabin, one of the oldest houses east of the Mississippi; the Emilio Carranza Memorial; the radio antenna that helped prove the Big Bang. This weekend, I visited …

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The Thing About The Thing

Thomas Pluck
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September 10, 2023
The Thing About The Thing

John Carpenter’s The Thing has long been a favorite of both horror and science fiction fans for its perfect mood, taut pacing, and its faithful adaptation of John Campbell;s unforgettable short story, “Who Goes There?” Written in 1938, the SF tale predates the Cold War paranoia of the Body Snatcher films, and touches an existential, primal childhood fea…

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The Horses of Chincoteague

Thomas Pluck
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October 29, 2023
The Horses of Chincoteague

Note: This post is “too long for email.” Click the title to view it on the webpage. Ride Misty for me? If you’re old enough to get that twisted reference, so am I. But unlike most of you, I decided to lug my mountain bike along for a road trip down the coast to the Tidelands. We visited family in North Carolina and South Carolina, and then met the horses…

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Maskulinity

Thomas Pluck
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August 2, 2023
Maskulinity

On Wednesday I talk about the best things I’ve read, watched, or heard in the past week. Today, a longer discussion of an article that piqued my interest… The worst time I had on social media was when I had the temerity to say, ‘why do we need to know someone’s gender, honorific, or background before we decide how to greet them? Just be respectful, we’re…

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The Tragedy of the No-Longer-Commons

Thomas Pluck
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August 9, 2023
The Tragedy of the No-Longer-Commons

Nearly every weekend, I go for a bike ride or a hike at Black Run Preserve, one of my favorite places. 1300 acres of land owned by the town of Evesham and cared for by a volunteer organization of which I am a member. Like many “preserved” spaces in New Jersey, it has a sewer line running through it on an easement; other places have gas pipelines, power …

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The Pine Baron

The Nudest Colony in the Pines

Thomas Pluck
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September 3, 2023
The Nudest Colony in the Pines

It recently came to my attention that not only was there a nudist campground and beach in the Pine Barrens from the 1930s to the 1980s, but it was founded by a Baptist minister who “became the leader of the nudist movement in America,” according to the linked article in the Philly Inquirer (paywall). The ruins remain, on private property, by an owner wh…

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Where It All Began

Thomas Pluck
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October 8, 2023
Where It All Began

A short distance from where the transistor was developed, on an overgrown mountain surrounded by abandoned buildings, sits an unassuming chunk of metal that was instrumental in humans learning how the universe began. A few weekends ago, as I drove to join my sister in seeing the hilarious comic Jessica Kirson in New York, I made a detour to visit both Be…

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The Pine Baron

Tom Brown Jr's Tracker School

Thomas Pluck
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July 2, 2023
Tom Brown Jr's Tracker School

Making and keeping friends as an adult can be difficult; we’ve talked about it before. We’re all so busy, and more likely to focus on our differences and use them to keep us apart, than what we have in common. I am still in touch with three of the people I made friends with at the Standard class of Tom Brown’s Tracker School.

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Stories

The Beast in Me

Thomas Pluck
·
August 7, 2022
The Beast in Me

This and “The Little Gold Colt” are the only two personal essays I’ve had published. They take a lot out of me, and I have great respect for nonfiction writers such as Roxane Gay, Barry Lopez, Annie Dillard, and Lauren Hough who write stunning essays and books from life. I’d much rather live in my own fantasy world when writing. But this one meant a lot to me. I didn’t “grow up” online, but I’ve been in front of a screen since I was ten or so, from programming my Atari 800, to Bulletin Board Systems on an early PC, to Usenet and UNIX. Forums, chatrooms, and MUDs, Multi-User Dungeons, an early form of Massive Multiplayer Roleplaying Games, were where I found who I really am, and the multifaceted aspects of my identity. I largely share these in my writing, and that was honed by exploring my other personae online… as this essay reveals. You can buy a copy of

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The Tomb of Multitudes

Thomas Pluck
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May 7, 2023
The Tomb of Multitudes

When I moved to southern New Jersey during the pandemic, I began searching the area for things to see and do. One park that showed up was Crystal Spring, where poet Walt Whitman—a resident of nearby Camden—found inspiration to write his poetry, including

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The Lost Town of Timbuctoo

Thomas Pluck
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March 6, 2022
The Lost Town of Timbuctoo

What is lost, and what is forgotten? What is forgotten, and what is ignored? Timbuctoo was a community in New Jersey, founded by former enslaved people, who fought off slave catchers from Philly who came hunting. It made the local paper. But I learned very little about slavery in New Jersey in my education. Even “good” stories like this one, where the sl…

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Man is Man to Wolf

Thomas Pluck
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April 16, 2023
Man is Man to Wolf

I think the mid-‘80s to mid-’90s was the Golden Age of Bumper Stickers. There were entire spinner racks of these elongated emblems emblazoned with definitive statements that were meant to define one’s ethos. Some were early forms of trolling: I Don’t Brake for Cats. Nuke the Whales.

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Stories

S.L.U.G.: a Joey Cucuzza Conundrum

Thomas Pluck
·
June 17, 2022
S.L.U.G.: a Joey Cucuzza Conundrum

This is one of my most personal stories, and my favorite Joey C story. It introduces a new recurring character, dives deep into ‘80s nostalgia, and my time working at the docks. Let me know what you think in the comments. S.L.U.G. A Joey Cucuzza Conundrum

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Subaru Secrets: Granola Dispensers

Thomas Pluck
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January 22, 2023
Subaru Secrets: Granola Dispensers

Those who know me primarily through my writing may think I’m a serious person, which I am not. I have been the class clown and a bigger ham than Honeybaked ever made, for the entirety of my life. If you could use a giggle or merely to gape in awe as I discard every shred of my dignity, may this brighten your Sunday morning. And please share! This video…

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To Inter is Human

Thomas Pluck
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April 5, 2023
To Inter is Human

Before we made cities for the living, we built cities of the dead. This was supposed to be the first line of a short story, but nothing followed. What came next was thinking about cemeteries, tombs, and necropolises, our stone elegies to the dead, and how building monuments to these painful losses is part of what makes us human.

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A Dog Visits on Father's Day

Thomas Pluck
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June 22, 2022
A Dog Visits on Father's Day

Deliver my soul from the sword, my precious life from the power of the dog. —Psalm 22:20 On Sunday, my friend Lauren Hough stopped by. I couldn’t make it to Lauren’s event with author Andrea Pitzer last week, so I was glad when she came over to enjoy the Lounge Pit, the glorious hoagies of Wawa, and the placid waters of Playa del Pluck.

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Visiting the Hindenburg Memorial

Thomas Pluck
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January 8, 2023
Visiting the Hindenburg Memorial

Several years ago, I accidentally drove onto a military base with a carful of drunkards on a brewery road trip. We’d been skunked on my attempt to visit Indian King Tavern, so I thought a visit to the memorial site of the Hindenburg Disaster would make up for it. As I said, drinking was involved. This was somewhere after a 21 beer flight at Triumph Brew…

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Stories

Item #214: a Curiosity

Thomas Pluck
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April 10, 2022
Item #214: a Curiosity

Item #214: a Curiosity by Thomas Pluck From the L. Erasmus Scott estate, a hand-sewn diary dated 1880, unidentified leather binding. Sixty pages, heavy foxing. Twenty-three pages neatly inscribed in a left-leaning hand. Found inside Item #83, a taxidermy specimen believed to be a highly deformed okapi, to be auctioned separately.

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Holiday Road

Thomas Pluck
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December 25, 2022
Holiday Road

I’ve been threatening to drive to Louisiana for a long time. My first visit to New Orleans was a road trip after college graduation, driving a Mustang with the cruise set at 55, with a battered copy of Roadfood and a Rand McNally Road Atlas as my only guides. This time around, the speed limit was 70 MPH, and I had Google Maps and a Subaru which handled …

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A Delightful Tarry at the Mohonk Mountain House

Thomas Pluck
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December 4, 2022
A Delightful Tarry at the Mohonk Mountain House

My grandfather was a truck driver for a local quarry. My father was in construction, and my mother began as a hairdresser, then managed food service, and became a librarian assistant at a high school. I am announcing my blue collar credentials, because this post is about as bougie as it gets.

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The Post Where You Unsubscribe

Thomas Pluck
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November 23, 2022
The Post Where You Unsubscribe

5 died in a terrorist attack inspired by hate. Kelly Loving. Daniel Aston. Derrick Rump. Raymond Green Vance. Ashley Green Paugh. The patrons of Club Q took down the shooter without arms. According to this interview with Richard Fierro, he was able to tackle the killer and disarm him. A trans woman (who was not named in the article) assisted by retrievin…

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That Time I Got Beat Up

Thomas Pluck
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November 10, 2022
That Time I Got Beat Up

As I was telling a friend who unfortunately is about to learn this themselves, trauma is one of the most enduring memories. The last time I was assaulted was in high school, and I can tell you all about it like it happened only yesterday. That’s the way our brains work; it releases a flood of adrenaline meant to improve our chances of survival by rampin…

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Choose Your Own Anxiety: The Adulthood of Terror

Thomas Pluck
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October 13, 2022
Choose Your Own Anxiety: The Adulthood of Terror

In ancient Rome There was a poem About a dog Who found two bones He picked at one He licked the other He went in circles He dropped dead —Devo, “Freedom of Choice” Maybe in a different family, I would have known I suffered from anxiety before I was in my forties. My grandmother talked about her “worry beads.” Doom was always around the corner; blue collar fata…

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Stories

Good People

Thomas Pluck
·
March 5, 2022
Good People

Good People by Thomas Pluck I. The Trail Guy His name was Everett, but the few who saw him called him The Trail Guy. Sighting him on the rocky, meandering trails behind William Paterson University was not uncommon, akin to crossing the path of a doe quietly browsing with her fawns, encountering one of the forest’s shy denizens, and often just as wondrous. …

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The Pine Baron

Tribute to a Fallen Messenger of Peace

Thomas Pluck
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August 24, 2022
Tribute to a Fallen Messenger of Peace

Every year on the second Saturday of July, members of American Legion gather in a remote spot in the Pine Barrens to perform a sacred duty. It fulfills a promise made to the people of Mexico over ninety years ago. It is held before a monument built with pennies collected from Mexican schoolchildren to honor a fallen hero. Not a soldier, but an airman on …

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Puppies with Stiff Necks

Thomas Pluck
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September 14, 2022
Puppies with Stiff Necks

Nobody told me that when I got older, my two major obstacles would be trying to make friends, and figuring out what the hell I did to my neck. (Strange days, indeed.) This begins for a lot of people in their mid-thirties. I’m way beyond my thirties, but I have been seeing a lot of Reddit posts by thirty-five-year-olds crying out for friendship. And I ge…

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Stories

We Got the Beat

Thomas Pluck
·
July 24, 2022
We Got the Beat

We Got the Beat by Thomas Pluck She was taking an Uber home from the party she wasn’t supposed to be at when it happened. My girl Allegra lived in a subdivision that was a maze. Google would send you into the lake, and people would drive into it, if the gates weren’t locked with a passcode for residents to walk their dogs.

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An Innocent Fox in the Valley of Death

Thomas Pluck
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August 18, 2022
An Innocent Fox in the Valley of Death

The past is a palimpsest written in blood. Even discounting human violence, life has it rough. It’s bones, not turtles, all the way down. And after the bones, it’s the liquefied remains of plants and single cell organisms, which we suck out of the ground with Silly Straws to power civilization.

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The Pine Baron

The Secret Boardwalk of Carnivorous Plants

Thomas Pluck
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June 19, 2022
The Secret Boardwalk of Carnivorous Plants

I don’t have the best sense of direction. And in the Pines, even with a handheld GPS, a car GPS, and two phones on different networks, it’s still possible to get lost, or not find something that’s in plain sight. It’s nothing supernatural. The Pinelands are often homogenous, and fires, controlled or otherwise, wipe out familiar areas and they grow anew in a cycle of rebirth that erases the landscape, and any hope of comparing photographs over the years.

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The Dirty, Criminal Past of Grand Central Terminal

Thomas Pluck
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May 18, 2022
The Dirty, Criminal Past of Grand Central Terminal

“Meet me by the clock.” For generations of New Yorkers that’s been a not-so-secret code leading to a rendezvous point in one of the most highly traveled buildings in the City, the grand concourse of Grand Central Terminal. How many trysts have begun there? Enough that there’s a “kissing room” not far away. At least one group of saboteurs planned to meet …

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Stories

The Big Snip

Thomas Pluck
·
March 4, 2022
The Big Snip

The Big Snip by Thomas Pluck first published in Dark City Lights, edited by Lawrence Block, from Three Rooms Press When the new girl got in the van, all Sharon saw was a sunbaked skinny-ass white girl with chicken legs, and she wasn’t sure how long she’d last. Probably couldn’t lift more than fifty pounds, at least without complaining. She wore long sleeves and kept her nails trimmed to the quick, her dishwater hair tied back, tucked down the back of her shirt. Smelled like she’d just sneaked a cigarette.

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An Epic Adventure

Thomas Pluck
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April 27, 2022
An Epic Adventure

I am on the grounds of Epic, a major health care software provider. If you’ve used MyChart, you’ve used their product. Their campus is a rolling demesne in the Wisconsin plains outside of Madison, a Disneyland for techs and coders—with several themed sub-campuses (campi?) that include a fantasyland of knights, dragons, and wizardry schools; a storybook …

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The Sparkly

Thomas Pluck
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March 30, 2022
The Sparkly

I have a lot of nostalgia for the early ‘80s, as I was coming of age, but I don’t wear rose colored glasses for the time. We were two years into Reaganomics, it was a difficult time to be different, and the threat of nuclear war felt very real. But it was also the golden age of Home Box Office.

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The Ambush Site of Bonnie and Clyde

Thomas Pluck
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March 23, 2022
The Ambush Site of Bonnie and Clyde

As I rounded the curve of scrub-speckled highway in Bienville Parish, not far from the Arkansas state line, I nearly blew past the concrete marker I came to see. I pulled the rented land barge onto the gravel patch on the roadside, and we stretched our legs before we approached the bullet-pocked monolith.

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Spa

Thomas Pluck
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March 16, 2022
Spa

This is one of the last things I wrote before the pandemic. My Uncle Paul died from Covid a few months later. I lost my job the same day. It was also my ninth wedding anniversary. That was a rough time. But I’m here now. And he isn’t. But his sense of humor remains, in me, and his other nieces, nephews, and their children. If you’ve read this before, I …

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