“Ecstasy” is back in the news, although now it's being called “Molly.” A few young partiers have died at big “Electronic Dance Music” (EDM) festivals around the nation, even prompting cancellation of some such events.…
Posts published by “Steve Heilig”
New books on “the brain” are being published every week, it seems, with many of them purporting to explain virtually everything about human behavior, health, follies, and the future.
Technology rules our lives, or rather, those who develop and sell it want us to believe that. Those who are peddling all manner of genetic testing really want us to take it on faith that…
The giant Burning Man structure went up in flames on Labor Day weekend as usual, and I watched it — online. It looked very dramatic and impressive. As the tens of thousands of “BM” attendees gathered around to watch and cheer in person as the smoke and fireworks rose to the sky, it also reminded me of the main reason I don't go up there to witness it all in person.
When I was growing up south of Los Angeles, anything north of, say, Santa Barbara seemed like Alaska. Or, almost. Certainly up above San Francisco was mysterious and exotic. On first visits, way up around…
The fabled City Lights bookstore in San Francisco is sixty years old this year. They're having a lot of celebratory events to mark the birthday. Even without the past decade's steady and precipitous decline in…
Rain? In late June? Sure California sorely needs it, but the forecast did make the honchos at the 20th annual Sierra Nevada World Music Festival a bit apprehensive. Early Sunday morning, while walking out by the high school and health center, it began drizzling as if things might get seriously wet, the dog looked at me like I was nuts for dragging him all the way out there from downtown, and I was reminded I had no rain gear nor umbrella. But it let up, to remain a light intermittent sprinkle that caused no real woes, and later a fast-talking wild-eyed woman wearing a sliced-up unstuffed stuffed lion on her head informed me she had “taken care of the rain thing” via some voodoo-type stuff she had “learned at Burning Man last year.” Whatever works.