I return to the tv, determined to cure myself of the casual lust that overtakes me every time this crap comes on, the mild hypnotic state in which I watch messes wiped from a sparkling white surface, food prep bewitched, household glue used to hold a Volkswagen in midair.
Conversation is just as vital now, a glue for friendship, a bridge to romance, a necessity in any workplace, and a source of energy and creativity and understanding.
The club would meet for eight months of the year. I would conduct the group in reading one book every month. There was a bit of concern if there would be enough books to keep the club going. I told them there was no shortage of books about jazz.
"Have Gun—Will Travel" defined itself by its difference, with co-creator Sam Role supposedly worrying about its reception: “Who’s going to buy this radical?”
When we bought our house, now well over 100 years old, I held the antique keys in my hand, loving their weight and ornate design, sure there was an energy swirled into those oxidized molecules.
I could have sworn Bruce Lee used a yo-yo in one of his kung-fu movies, a sign that the yo-yo moved across the colored world in impressive fashion. But Lee did not use it and the Filipinos never killed either Spanish or American soldiers with it. It has always been a toy. I loved Duncan yo-yos as a kid. I still have one. In times of stress, it is better than a glass of wine.
Anaerobic bacteria, courtesy the CDC/Gilda Jones A multinational corporation was investing in environmental initiatives, and I hoped to write about them. Their main project was highly technical; for background they had me email two university scientists. The scientists could not easily explain to a layman what they did,…
The mentalist’s tone matters: an offhand, “Oh, and did you want to change that?” is less likely to elicit a change than a slow dangling of the temptation to change the card.
Why did people act like passing gas was rude? (And why did they use “pass,” the verb of death?) Bodies have air inside, sometimes too much air. It is not our fault that this air smells like a rind of Limburger dunked in a sewer.
Photo by John Griswold On a trip to the Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis this summer, a wonderful thing happened: my younger son suddenly thought of something he would like for his birthday. My kids do not want things, usually, which makes holiday gift-giving difficult, so I…