I had the privilege of hearing Kurt Vonnegut speak once toward the end of his life. I was overwhelmed by his humor and humanity. He was a unique and brilliant individual [...]

It is Independence Day. There is red, white and blue bunting hung from porches and windows. The air has the scent of smoke; it’s there in the background but always present. You almost don’t notice it...

Once, a long time ago, I lived in a house near the edge of the world. In the winter, when the air was still, I would lie awake at night and listen to the Ocean, to the waves. Relentless. Never-ending. […]

“The Masque of the Red Death” is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe originally published in 1842. It tells the story of a group of wealthy nobles attempting to avoid a plague [...]

Once, a long time ago, I stood in the sky far above the world. The observation deck of the World Trade Center was more than 1000 feet high. The windows were wide, floor-to-ceiling glass. The first thing I did was […]

I sit and look out my back window into the yard behind my house. It is large and full of trees; a combination of fir and pine and aspen. On this day, early in the morning, it is cold and […]

A long time ago, way back in college, I had an apartment two blocks off Height Street in San Francisco. It was a nondescript thing just a box on the third floor where the “rooms” were defined by how you […]

Hello everyone. If you have been a frequent visitor to this site you may have noticed that new content has been…well let’s say sporadic. Inconsistent is another way to put it. Non-existent might be more accurate. But let’s not quibble […]

The blood elevator scene, sometimes called the ‘river of blood,” from Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining is a horrifying and disturbing image in a film full of horrifying and disturbing images.  Upon watching it the scene produces in many – myself […]

To say that Ralph Steadman has a distinctive style is a bit of an understatement. Primarily an illustrator and cartoonist, Steadman started his career in the 1960s and soon established himself as a counter-culture icon. I don’t really know how […]