Secrets Of The Ouija Board
If there’s a child anywhere in the world who hasn’t attended a gathering where ghost stories were told, I’d like to meet that extraordinary youngster. Scaring ourselves with tales from the grave is a...
View ArticleTrue Lies For April Fool
Before she died, I had a phone conversation with my stepmother who was 98 years-old at the time. I asked her how her day was going and she cheerfully replied she’d had a wonderful morning visiting her...
View ArticleAshes To Ashes
Recently, I met with a financial planner to update arrangements for my final years. I must say, preparing to exit life requires more paperwork than coming into it. Happily, I passed inspection on all...
View ArticleHe Lov’d Not Wisely
A revered Buddhist monk long ago was asked what he would most regret about dying. After some thought, he answered he would miss watching clouds drift across the sky. His reply struck me as profound,...
View ArticleA Spiritual Understanding Of How To Live
A funny thing happened on the way to the theater the other night. A friend was driving and while we sped along the darkened streets, she admitted her vision wasn’t as good as it used to be. Like me,...
View ArticleThe First Lesson Of Reality
I came across an excerpt from Barbara Ehrenreich’s latest book, Living with a Wild God, recently. (“Zapped by the Invisible World,” The Baffler, Vol. 25, 2014, pg. 13.) I’ve never read her any of...
View ArticleLiving With A Wild God
In August, I read a review of Barbara Ehrenreich’s new book, Living with a Wild God. (Blog 8/11/14) The work centers around an experience in her early life which she describes as a shift in her level...
View ArticleScience, Fiction’s Handmaiden
In Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Jules Verne imagined deep water submarines. In I, Robot, Isaac Asimov dreamed of machines with personalities. J. K. Rowling envisioned an invisibility cloak...
View ArticleTwo Halves That Made A Hole
The cliché is that “fact is stranger than fiction.” It isn’t, of course. Fiction is unbounded by place, time, space and the laws of physics. Yet when truth presses against the limits of reality, the...
View ArticleGood Housekeeping Gives Death No Stamp of Approval
On the way to the gym at my retirement center, there’s a table with a small basket resting on it. Sometimes the basket is empty. Sometimes it isn’t When it isn’t, it’s full of condolence cards...
View ArticleA Kingdom Of One’s Own
Every once in a while, my stockbroker and I have lunch. We don’t necessarily do it to adjust my investments. We get together to solve the world’s financial problems. Right now, the world, according...
View ArticleThe Matrix, The Dreamer And Hot Fudge Sundaes
An article popped up on my computer the other day which suggested we live in a Matrix. Like the film by the same name, our lives may be no more than a dream which we are allowed to think is real....
View ArticleFor The Judge
One of my gaggle of 3 older gentleman at the retirement center has died. (Blog 7/15/15) I feel his absence though I’d known him only a few months. He’d been a judge in his working life. His wife had...
View ArticleThe Virtual Afterlife
When I was a child, I’d often stand in front of the Philco radio and pretend I was a concert conductor. “Beethoven’s Fifth” and “Flight of the Bumble Bee,” gave me a good, aerobic workout as did...
View ArticleReligion And The Will To Power
Barbara G. Walker, among her many talents, is a Biblical scholar, author of books like The Woman’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Man Made God. Her latest essay, “Deconstructing Religion and Power,” draws...
View ArticleA Dream Come True
A new chapter has opened for the Shakespeare and Company bookstore in Paris. (Blog 12/30/14) Having endured the German invasion of World War II, this bookstore, home to waves of struggling and famous...
View ArticleDivine Nature — A Rumination
I had a long and convoluted conversation with my stock broker this morning. Times are volatile for the market and for the world, and so we bent our heads together to examine ways to preserve capital....
View ArticleWhat A Piece Of Work Is Man
One of the challenges of living at my retirement center is keeping up with the reading recommendations of fellow inmates. My list is long and growing. Nonetheless, when I heard about an article on...
View ArticleRobin Hood’s Heart Of Darkness
Being either a psychopath or a narcissist is rapidly falling out of favor as a mental illness among psychiatrists. The afflictions, if they are afflictions, are far too common. (See blogs 1/18/13 and...
View ArticleTriumph Of An Imposter
“What kind of a woman are you?” Henri Matisse screamed at his model as he stood before his canvass. He and dozens of other Parisian painters in the 1920s, Chagall, Cocteau and Braque among them, would...
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