After a couple months of merciless story deadlines, hard disk crashes, and strange viruses that you only find out about once you have kids, the Loom is creaking back to life. Expect several postings this week. For now, let me direct you to a review I wrote a couple weeks ago for The New York Times Book Review about Devil in the Mountain, a book about the Andes. The author, an Oxford geologist, dissects these mountains like a surgeon cutting open a living person. It reminded me of the times I’ve driven around with geologists; all of the landscape that blurs past most of us is a vast palimpsest to them, and waving their hand out the window,