The memorial service for Joan Didion, who died December 23, 2021, was held this week at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City. (You can watch it here. There is no audio during the slideshow at the start.) Organizers explained the…
A wandering mind has slipped its moorings, severing connection with its immediate environment. No longer paying attention to what it can perceive in the surrounding world, it turns inward, self-referential, occupied by dreams and memories and stray thoughts. Instead of musing about what its partnered body is experiencing, reading, hearing, thinking, it slides away to a different destination altogether.
You may be surprised to hear that St. Louis is an excellent place for a fall hike. But that is because St. Louis and its surrounding areas are full of surprises.
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,…