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Books Recently Read
One of the pleasures of being retired (sort of--I'm actually a "full-time" antiquarian bookseller, though I can organize my own time now in a way I never could have back in the day when I worked for...
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What About Hoodies?
When I was a boy, growing up in the 1950's and 1960's, I owned a red sweatshirt with a hood. This wasn't called a "hoodie." It was a utilitarian article of clothing meant to be worn on very cold days,...
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American speech is lively, but it tends towards fewer words, and slangy abbreviation. We should celebrate our language, and indulge it. We don't know how lucky we are to have inherited it from our...
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Looking Backwards Towards the Future
The Hispano-Suiza was one of the most stylish automobiles of the golden age of automotive design. One of the original automobile manufacturers (from 1898-1904), the company spearheaded engineering...
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Creepy Corkscrews
I came across a delightful little compendium recently, published in France (and in French), about the history and design of corkscrews. Leave it to the French, where wine is king, to focus on the tools...
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More at Plural - A Reply to Henry Gould's Note Contra Conceptualism
Let's begin by saying that I don't disagree with what Henry Gould has said on his blog HG POETICS on July 26, 2013. There's an implied definition of conceptual art which I won't disagree with, since it...
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Time is a Wedge
Timeis a wedgeexpanding outwardfrom a bladeof velocity--curvesof error rolling off theleading edge ofdivision--like fractalequations, un-daunted byexception--propagate endlesslyacross anexpanse...
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How We Know What We Know
NSA Headquarters, Fort Meade, MarylandDisclosures this week, following the initial one by Edward Snowden two months ago, that the NSA had been engaged in gathering not only the so-called "meta" data...
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If I Was a Rich Man [Part I]
"If I was a rich man," sang Zero Mostel on Broadway, and later, Topol, as Tevye, the sad and prideful Jewish village-man from Fiddler on the Roof, based on Sholem Aleichem's [1859-1916] Tevye and His...
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Zuckerberg's Corrupt Stance on Immigration
We've known for a while that hi-tech companies have been offshoring production facilities, where cheap labor, lax safety and tough anti-union conditions prevail. What's become apparent lately is that...
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If I Were a Rich Man [Part II]
But enough of generosity. How about greed? How much is enough, and how much too much? Is self-indulgence really a sin, and what are the limits of a reasonable consumption?One of my long-term daydreams...
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Death of the Twinkie - Birth of the Hand-Held
The reports of the death of the Twinkie@ were premature. Invented in 1930, by the 1950's, when I was as boy, Twinkies were coming into their own as a hit snack treat. In those days, kids ate a lot of...
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Whither the Giants ?
2013 has been an off year for our home team, last year's champions, the San Francisco Giants.After winning it all two out of the last three years, a series of misfortunes and letdowns occurred this...
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Through the Keyhole
The modest little tortellini pasta has a piquant mythic origin.According to Wikipedia, the origin of its shape has two versions, both essentially the same in concept. A strong local tradition has it...
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That Was The Way It Was
In my continuous pursuit of the perfect bathroom book, I stumbled upon this new autobiographical excursion by the late James Laughlin [1914-1997], The Way It Wasn't [New York: New Directions, 2006]....
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Amazing Water Skates
When I was a small boy, my parents would occasionally take me to a resort area of the Russian River, known as Cazadero. There were a number of small river beaches just off the highway, and a small...
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The Autonomous Axiom
As I write this on the morning of August 28th, 2013, the national media is expecting imminent action by the U.S. in Syria, in response to widely accepted reports of the Assad Regime's use of chemical...
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The Oscillating Adjective
Vibrant: characterized by or exhibiting vibration; pulsating or trembling; giving an impression of vigour and activity; caused by vibration, resonant; pulsating; energetic; (Linguistics / Phonetics)...
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The Princess
Grace Kelly [1929-1982] was that anachronism, a commoner who rose through the ranks of the entertainment business to achieve literal royal status as the Princess of Monaco. Monaco--which I've written...
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A Modest Proposal
I live in the East Bay of the San Francisco Bay Area. I commuted to San Francisco for 27 years, progressing through the AC Transit Bus system, the Bay Area Rapid Transit train system, and the private...
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