Oliver Sacks: Farewell and Thank You

I was saddened to hear of the passing of Oliver Sacks, whose work made a big impression on me during the handful of years I was writing for science publications. He and I had never met, but he did one thing for me that I’ll always be grateful for. He chose one of my nonfiction articles for the Ecco/HarperCollins annual anthology, Best American Science Writing 2003. It was my second appearance in that collection, and I was just as surprised the second time around as I was for the first. So thank you, Dr. Sacks. Hail and farewell.

The story he picked was the one I did on sanctuaries for retired lab chimps. You can read it here.

'Big Weed' in the New York Times

Incredibly, I missed this the other day. My co-author Christian Hageseth did a Q&A with the travel section of the New York Times, talking about his upcoming marijuana Colorado “weedery.” As he describes it in our book, Big Weed, a “weedery” is like a brewery or winery, except for legal marijuana.

From the article:

Wineries and breweries should brace themselves for some unusual competition. Colorado, which legalized marijuana for recreational use in 2012, will get its first “weedery” in early 2016.

The $35 million project, Green Man Cannabis Ranch and Amphitheater, the brainchild of Christian Hageseth, is set to open in Denver. Its greenhouses represent a major shift because producers have largely cultivated marijuana indoors; there will also be a performance space, a restaurant, a rooftop bar, a gift shop and, of course, a marijuana dispensary.