As humans we are hardwired to quickly detect when another person’s behavior appears outside the norm. It’s an aspect of human intuition that is instantly recognizable but hard to put into words. But if you…
Posts published in “Essays”
In the interest of full disclosure, yes, I was a hippie, and yes, I was at Woodstock. I’ve spent most of the intervening half century pissing off the hippies and making fun of the grandiosely…
The last car my grandmother bought herself was a new 1984 Toyota Tercel. I thought it was too small and an ugly color, but she loved it. Every time we walked up to it she…
During my first trip to New York, just as if I had been a Syrian arriving in Nero’s Rome, it was necessary to fulfill certain unavoidable rituals: see Picasso’s Guernica at MOMA; cross the Brooklyn…
In the spring of 1906 I was finishing my junior year at the University of California at Berkeley. I was living on College Avenue about a block from the university. On the morning of April…
“Save the Whales!” Who hasn’t heard the cry that’s now timelier than ever before? It’s not only the commercial hunting of whales that’s to blame for the decline of the species, though there’s still much…
“Do you have a mission?” He startled me with his point-blank question. I had just entered the room. As part of my work with Passage to Manhood I had come to the school this young…