On September 28, the 1941 season ended with Boston Red Sox Outfielder Ted Williams as the last player to hit .400 in a season. It was the apostle Thomas who doubted the resurrection of Jesus. He had to touch the wounds of Jesus in order to believe.
After resisting emojis for years, I slap them on willy-nilly, a quick nod that lets a text’s sender know I adore them and in an ideal world would write a long and thoughtful response. We are all too busy, and pictograms are fast and can be dismissive and friendly at the same time, ending an exchange that might otherwise ping-pong for far too long. But now I am told that the smiley face itself is not the least bit friendly.
I would not be at all surprised if figs, rather than apples, contained God’s knowledge. They are at once male and female, and I trust androgyny. Also, figs are not fruits at all, but hundreds of flowers turned inward.
Photo by John Griswold Maybe you too have the 2005 edition of The Elements of Style, by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White, illustrated by Maira Kalman. It is one of those books that seems to rise to the surface of piles of books and present its…
At life’s start, we share a single heartbeat. We are connected to everything our mother feels and thinks. Now, especially when we love someone, our minds and bodies instinctively try to recapture a bit of that unity. We unconsciously mimic the physical gestures or posture of someone we like; we yawn when they do; we giggle just because they are laughing.
Smokers are not precisely analogous to the unvaccinated but there are important similarities. Smoking and COVID-19 are associated with severe respiratory illness. Both can harm the general public: second-hand smoke with smoking, and the easy passing of the coronavirus unless mitigated by mask-wearing and social distancing. It is the fact that the general public can be harmed that generated our response to the unvaccinated and to smokers.
Hardly anybody who got addicted to Bob Ross’s show bothered to paint. They just watched, rapt. His encouragement was comforting, like a compliment with no strings attached: “You coulda gone pro!” “You should write a book!” No expectations, no judgment. Just a happy reminder that possibilities existed.
Before the electric Miles Davis of the 1970s, before Chick Corea’s Return to Forever, or Weather Report, or the other fusion bands, there was Chico Hamilton, Charles Lloyd, and Gábor Szabó in the 1960s, who introduced the elements of avant-garde, rock-ish melodies, and youthful vibrancy that joined both Black and White musical sensibilities.
We expect so much more of ourselves than we do of dogs. We judge ourselves more harshly, compare more viciously. Granted, a show dog can outdo most narcissists in grooming hours, but that is the human companion’s doing, not the dog’s. Other animals do not judge themselves at all, and maybe that is what frees us to relate to them differently.
Southern Illinois was my first biome, and I still know it intimately, but summers can be miserably humid and hot. Before every major thunderstorm, people in the St. Louis area keep saying this will be the one to break the heat for the year, but today it was in the 90s with 83 percent humidity.