In Red Eye, Melanie Zanona writes about a recent series of street attacks in Chicago:

While none of the victims were seriously injured — the Michigan man suffered a broken jaw and the Gold Coast man suffered lacerations and bruises to his head and body — the attacks have once again raised concerns among Chicagoans and tourists on how to protect themselves.

Hmm. If my jaw were broken, I’m pretty sure I’d consider it a serious injury.

… everything in life, directly or indirectly, has a great degree of mystery. To paraphrase Warren Zevon, “Some days I feel like my shadow’s casting me.” Persons, places, things … time itself is a mystery. You know, like, who can explain it? It’s really difficult to define anything. What’s slow can speed up. Love can turn into hate. Peace can turn into war. Pride can turn into humility. Anger to grief.

How would you define a simple thing like a chair, for instance—something you sit on? Well, it’s more than that. You can sit on a curb, or a fence. But they are not chairs. So what makes a chair a chair? Maybe it’s got arms? A cross has arms, so has a person. Maybe the chair doesn’t have arms? Okay, so it’s a post or a flagpole. But those aren’t chairs. A chair has four legs. So does a table. So does a dog. But they’re not chairs either. So a chair is a mystical thing. It’s got a divine presence.

There’s a gloomy veil of chaos that surrounds it. And “chaos” in Greek means “air.” So we live in chaos and we breathe it. Is it any wonder why some people snap and go crazy? Mystery is ancient. It’s the essence of everything. It violates all conventions of beauty and understanding. It was there before the beginning, and it will be there beyond the end. We were created in it.

The Mississippi Sheiks recorded a song called “Stop and Listen.” To most music aficionados, it’s but a ragtime blues. But to me, it’s words of wisdom. Saint Paul said we see through the glass darkly. There’s plenty of mystery in nature and contemporary life. For some people, it’s too harsh to deal with. But I don’t see it that way.

— Bob Dylan, on painting

The sun rises over the red rocks of Sedona, Ariz.

Earlier this month, Elizabeth and I traveled to Sedona, Ariz. — and then floated above it, courtesy of Red Rock Balloon Adventures. The shot above is one of my favorite pictures from our journey into the skies over one of the loveliest spots on Earth. Here are the rest of my photos from the trip.

Click here to see the rest of my pictures from the trip. Here are some photos from an earlier trip to Sedona.

Click here to see the rest of my photos from a recent trip to Kalamazoo, Mich. These gourds were among the finer wares available at Gene the Pumpkin Man‘s pumpkin patch.

Also, pumpkins were for sale. Most of the photos, though, are from the Al Sabo Land Preserve in Kalamazoo. It was a gorgeous fall weekend in Southwestern Michigan.