“Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.” — Mark Twain I realize it is not, in Buddhist terms, skillful speech to call anyone an idiot,…
Posts tagged as “essays”
Coincidentally or ironically or naturally, of the nine adults I encountered on my way to this place on the sand overlooking Mendocino Bay, eight were enormously fat and the ninth was a woman so entirely void of excess weight she appeared to be a member of an entirely different species than her behemoth brethren.
How did I get into this? That’s the inevitable question of concert day, one that has been gnawing at the performer’s nerves through the preceding night, perhaps for days before. You’ve practiced for weeks on…
Like most people, Billy came to prison scared and with good reason. See, this wasn't some “Camp Snoopy” joint where wanna-be tough guys dried out from their last meth run. Not a place where you just laid around for 8 months, swapped lies and told bullshit war stories until you paroled.
We’ve slid down a long, slippery slope since the days of the Free Speech Movement in Berkeley and mainstream reporters like Dan Rather turning President Nixon’s own words around to sarcastically imply that the leader of the free world was running from grand jury and congressional investigations.
We have a large old plum tree growing on the north side of our house, and in this first year of our residency the tree has gifted us with several hundred sweet red plums, which are ambrosia to deer, appealing to squirrels, and irresistible to a trio of baby foxes who visit the tree daily.
Whether on silver screen or in symphony hall, it can be a curse to be type cast. So consummately did Bach play the part of a composer of learned fugues that his lighter side is…
July 24th marks the anniversary of Anthony Johnson acquiring 250 acres of land in Northampton County, Virginia during the summer of 1651. Anthony Johnson was a free black man, brought to the colony aboard the…