It’s getting to be that time of the year in northern California when some of us, often called “spiritual sluts,” celebrate Christmas, Hanukah, Kwanza and Tết, the Vietnamese New Year, which I enjoyed in Hanoi for the first…
Posts published in “Essays”
During fire season, I always think about Mike Davis, author of one of the most — pardon the pun — incendiary essays in the annals of SoCal letters: “The Case for Letting Malibu Burn.” I…
It used to be that you’d duck out of a smoke-filled jazz show for a much-needed gulp of fresh air. Bebop was breathless in more than one sense: not only fast, but also dangerous to…
Time is not just relative. It’s political, too. We often measure our lives by presidential terms: the Carter years; Clinton time; Bush I; Bush II? The end of time under Trump? Time can be bent…
The forecast for August 8th was ominous. The temperature in Portland was predicted to breach 100 hundred degrees for the second time in a couple weeks. In the end, the mercury stalled at 96 degrees…
I turned on my TV at about nine-thirty Tuesday night. I wanted to see what the paid liars were saying about the fiasco of an election, and which of the “choices” offered them our ill-informed…
The anniversary of Jack London’s death on November 22, 1916 is near. In honor of the occasion, which I will observe, we might revisit some of his ideas and take another look at his life.…