Bach never went in the ocean for a refreshing dip. He never even set eyes on the Atlantic. He could have made it to the North Sea at Lübeck during his sojourn there to learn…
Posts published in “Essays”
California is disappearing in smoke and flames. Global warming sits on us like a smothering blanket. Out my window I see two fires and there are at least seven ongoing fires in the state. Triple digit heat is unrelenting. Leaves are falling from the trees ahead of schedule as a result of a six-year drought with only one year of significant rainfall.
We first met Jack June in 1972, and what a surprise it was. My wife and I were part of the hippie invasion driving up property prices and corrupting Anderson Valley youth with our New…
The end of July and the beginning of August always reminds me of berry picking time, blackberries that is. Until the extinction of rotary phones this part of the year meant the telephone at the…
A polite term for it is “puffery.” It's also known as “advertiser-friendly journalism.” It has often plagued the magazine industry and especially since the 1920s when President Calvin Coolidge observed that advertising was “part of…
I don't keep a ringing phone in my bedroom. Whatever it is, unless it's an invasion from Mars, in which case it wouldn't matter, can wait until I've had a night's sleep, I figure. One…
They arrived in droves from all points of the county and beyond, rising with the birds and freeing up all available cargo space in their vehicles in order to maximize the Costco experience, which is…