Grumpy Old…Men?
Curmudgeons, you see, have standards. Sherlock Holmes could not abide being fooled, and Statler and Waldorf suffered no foolish puppets.
Dispatches
Why Humans Shun the Humanities
History grows us up. And literature? It complicates the world for us. This is why we must kill the humanities.
Everything Addresses Us
“Tech is taking all the things you already disliked—triviality, noise, rudeness, interruption—and delivering them in a format you don’t have any control over.”
Secrets Are Buried in Our National Parks
The U.S. invented the national park—and ours hold mysteries of nature, of human eccentricity, of the past, of science and the supernatural....
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and the Varieties of Rebellion
Was Randle Patrick McMurphy a fool to go up against Nurse Ratched? Was Nelson Mandela a fool to spend twenty-seven years in prison? Was Alexei Navalny a fool to taunt the Russian powers girding Vladimir Putin and suffer poisoning, prison, and death?
Recipes for Rascals in Distant Cities: Greens
I would suggest using an iron skillet, the kind they made before inferior castings. Do I need to say the old ways are often best? Heat it up for five minutes at medium-high as you prep your ingredients.
When to Resist and How to Live Free
Living freely and intentionally is hard work. Every little decision winds up visible in the mosaic.
A Reason to Keep Going
“Life is never made unbearable by circumstances, but only by lack of meaning and purpose.”~Viktor Frankl
Not Doing Yoga at Montauk with Roy Scheider’s Wife
The 50th anniversary of ‘Jaws’ will trigger the return of sub-rational fears of swimming in the ocean. For me, I am left thinking about a private lunch I shared with Roy Scheider, who played the film’s police chief, and wanting to commit these memories of the great actor to the public record.
The Totality of Trees
We had no idea how much we would miss them in the wake of St. Louis’s May 16 tornado. At least, I did not.