I’ll walk where my own nature would be leading —
It vexes me to choose another guide —
― Emily Brontë
Welcome to Portable Bohemia, a website and blog devoted to celebration of the artistic spirit and pursuit of intellectual adventure.

The blog features essays, reviews, rants, screeds, ruminations, and on the good days maybe a measure of insightful commentary about books, cinema, art and culture, sports, and sundry other themes and topics. Matters of politics and current affairs are taken up as conscience and honest indignation dictate.
Portable Bohemia goes Substack. This is a work in progress as I figure out how best to integrate Substack posts with the website. Content remains free. Click the link above to subscribe to receive free posts via email and the Substack app.
Check out the Gallery page for photographs. For the most part I point the camera and hope something good will come of it. I like to think that sometimes it does.
Contact me if you have questions, comments, or information about upcoming events. I would love to hear from you.
The site member feature has been discontinued. I set it up for a while as a way to monitor comments on blog posts. This proved both unnecessary and unwieldy. New requests show up somehow from somewhere from time to time. These are blocked without reply. Readers who wish to contact me may use the from on the contact page.
Newsletters
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May 15, 2023 / Vol. VIII, No. 10: links to recent articles at my Substack site, Mill Hill Scientist by James L Jim Stevens, some good memories, and baseball…
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May 1, 2023 / Vol. VIII, No. 9: announcing transition to David Matthews Portable Bohemia at Substack…
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April 15, 2023 / Vol. VIII, No. 8: the trash talk affair, the Tennessee three and GOP disdain for democracy, classical education and cultural heritage…
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April 1, 2023 / Vol. VIII, No. 7: indictment frenzy, book recommendations, prisoner rights crusader Marjorie Taylor Greene (extreme sarcasm alert)…
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March 15, 2023 / Vol. VIII, No. 6: a day in the life of an obscure man, a dose of perspective on America's "ironclad" commitment to Israeli security, years of anarchy…
From the Blog
Recent Posts
Poems
Adelaide Literary Magazine December 2022
Otoliths issue fifty-seven, southern autumn, 2020
Quill & Parchment
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Easy to Forget (February 2007)
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A Hard Climb (March 2007)
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Wait (April 2008)
Steam Ticket Vol. 25 Spring 2022
Literary
Websites of Interest
Activism
Arts
Bookstores
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City Lights (San Francicso)
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Odd Bird Books (Columbia, SC)
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Powell's Books (Portland)
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The Source (Detroit)
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The Strand (New York)
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Tall Tales (Atlanta)
Coffee Dens, etc.