David K. Leff, Essayist, Poet, Lecturer

David K. Leff Releases Hidden in Plain Sight

NEW BOOK: In the course of the mundane routines of life, we encounter a variety of landscapes and objects, either ignoring them or looking without interest at what appears to be just a tree, stone, anonymous building, or dirt road. But the deep traveler doesn’t make this mistake. Instead, the commonplace elements become the most important. By learning to see the magic in the mundane, we not only enrich daily life with a sense of place, we are more likely to protect and make those places better.  Join me on adventures discovering drive-in theaters, Quonset huts, old growth forests, cider mills, ghost towns, roadside springs, Nike missile sites, neglected graveyards and many other quirky wonders.  Hidden in Plain Sight explores my home turf of Connecticut, but the method of deep travel and the kinds of objects and phenomena awaiting discovery can be found anywhere.  You just have to look!  This book will teach you how.

Purchase on line or call: 800-421-1561

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Are you a deep traveler?  Do you seek connections among the diverse phenomena you encounter daily?  Welcome to a space on the Web that explores the confluence between natural and cultural environments, that looks at the world in four dimensions, in time as well as space.

Please take a moment to look at David's books, read one of his essays or savor a few poems.  Find out where he's speaking next, or enjoy a slideshow of the last undiscovered place.

Blue Busses and Unlikely Barbecue

“Vermont” and “school bus” are not terms usually associated with barbecue.  But just off I-91 and a short hop from the village of Putney all three converge at Curtis’ Barbecue, the self proclaimed 9th wonder of the world.  I first discovered this Mecca for ribs and chicken serendipitously while looking to gas my pickup about twenty years ago.  It had slipped memory until recently when a similar errand took me off the big road at exit 4 and led to a reunion with what felt like an old friend.  Unlike most things recollected, it was even better than I remembered.

Ugly Flowers

Not all flowers are lovely.  Some are downright ugly.  It’s not a matter of aesthetic deficiency, but due to their poor ecological deportment, their noxious relationship to other flora.

On the banks of the Farmington River a couple days ago I found a lone trout lily with its elliptical freckled leaves and nodding yellow bell of bloom growing among emerging shoots of Japanese knotweed.  The large, plum-blushed knotweed leaves seemed sinister, a gang of bullies about to engulf one of the most enchanting and delicate spring wildflowers.

Houses of Worship Reborn

We often see houses of worship as fixtures on the landscape and in our lives.  Yet over a score of them in Connecticut’s urban, suburban, and rural areas are for sale or seeking new uses because while    pulpits teach that God is eternal, places consecrated for prayer are not.

Frequently located in town centers, religious structures are typically focal points of community activities.  Even non-members and non-believers visit occasionally for weddings, funerals and other life events of friends and relatives.  Such buildings range from storefronts to grand stone edifices with steeples or domes and elaborate columns.  But whether as a white clapboard meeting house or a contemporary with multiple gables and glass walls, they remain signature place defining institutions.

The World by the Seat of My Pants

There are few American icons as universally recognized and yet deeply personal as a pair of Levis jeans.  But today's classic denims may not exactly match the images fostered by our imaginations.  First brought to market in 1873 by dry goods merchant Levi Strauss and tailor Jacob Davis, who hit on the idea of copper rivets at pocket corners and other stress points, their creation by a pair of  European Jewish immigrants in itself tells a very American story.  Designed originally to be worn by men working in the outdoors, the descendents of these denims have not only clothed factory and construction workers, but starting in the 1950s, cultural rebels like Jack Kerouac, Marlon Brando, Elvis Presley and James Dean.

Leaving it to Beavers: Art, Ecology and History in Pointed Stumps

Over the last couple months the beavers in my neighborhood have been as busy as . . . well . . . beavers.  Darkened pointed tree stumps and partially healed basal areas stripped of bark are testament that these flat tailed rodents have been active in the area for a long time, but the recent burst of activity between the upper and lower Collinsville, Connecticut dams on the Farmington River is beyond anything I’ve seen in nearly three decades of almost daily observation.  Though I’ve often spotted the glossy furred creatures swimming at twilight, I’ve never caught them at more than hauling away a few light branches.  The fresh piles of wood chips, sculpture gardens of bright conical stumps, and freshly gnawed limbs suggest I’ve been missing a good deal under cover of darkness.