In her time, Hedvig Eva Maria Kiesler, known as Hedy Lamarr, was believed to be the most beautiful woman in the world. She has gone down in history as the first actress to be shown…
Posts published in “Essays”
The embers were still warm the morning of December third of last year when phones lit up in law offices all over the Bay Area. The race was on to pin blame on somebody or…
The rain moves in ghostly horizontal sheets that march out of step across the landscape. Propelled by tradewinds gusting at 40 mph, curtains of water float across the terrain, bending and weaving in translucent forms…
Surrounded by depressing news on health care and a non-functional president and congress I decided to escape the real world and treat myself to a weekend away from the media and go listen to great…
I was perusing the dictionary recently, as I will sometimes, in a sort of meandering, purposeless way, having already extracted the bit of hard info I came for and then being led down the lexicographical…
He was a mean ugly slumlord, pushing 80 with a big chip on his shoulder. Every week he drove his old yellow van into town to pick up groceries that grew rancid on the shelves…
Women got short shrift in 19th century reporting. If married, a woman was almost always referred to in print by her husband's first and last name, with Mrs. in front of that. You could give…
The late 1950s were great years for black-and-white movies in France: I’m referring specifically to those with white people on screen, and black musicians invisible on the soundtrack. The most famous of these films is…
After Roller Derby in Eureka, after lots of sushi and sake in Arcata, after she drove home to Trinidad at 11pm I walked around the corner to the Arcata Hotel where I found a No…