IT’S HARD TO STAND OUT from the billions of people using social media — but you can do it in a small way, at least among friends. I’m speaking as a self-appointed Facebook Questioner, posing queries every Monday through Friday…
Tag: learned
What I wish I’d known before I had to learn it.
“It’s Just That…”
THERE’S A THING — WELL, LET’S call it a verbal placeholder-prefix — used by writers of audiovisual entertainments when they want a character to segue away from or into an awkward conversation. My friends, meet: “It’s just that…” You’ve heard…
Let Us Sit Upon the Ground and Sing Glad Songs to the Memory of Groovy English Teachers
WHEN MRS. BOISVERT TOLD ME in ninth-grade English class that I had the soul of a poet, I grimaced. “I want to be a scientist,” I said. She had no answer to that. But she had answers to lots of…
Neither Rain Nor Snow Nor Sudden Car Door
BOMBING STEEPLY DOWNHILL ON SAN Francisco’s pedestrian-thick California Street while screaming “No brakes!” was just another day in my brief life as a late-1980s bike messenger. I had gotten into “the life” by happy accident. Having been fired from a…
How Many Dead Friends Are There?
AT LEAST ONCE OR TWICE a week The Metaphorager‘s access logs reveal that someone is reading “Letter to a Dead Friend,” a 2010 paean to my still-dear psychic twin James “Sputnik” Gjerde. At this writing (March 2019), there have been…
Why I Love: Robert Anton Wilson
IT’S THE WAY HE BLOWS my mind. It’s the way he mixes conviction with doubt. It’s his searingly funny prose. It’s his search for Ultimate Relativity. It’s that he taught me some important Latin phrases, like “Cui bono?” and “Non…
Road Wisdom
“WHEN YOU’RE ON THE ROAD and somebody offers you something, take it.” This piece of learning was gifted me by a temporary chauffeur during my 1985 hitchhiking trip (detailed elseblog) who, somewhere on EB I-80 between Placerville and Stateline, asked…
5 Thoughts: Confessions of a Vicarious Eater
1. “WHAT DID YOU EAT?” THIS question works its way into every conversation I have or had with someone (online and off) relating to culinary experiences. 2. There’s a reason for this: I am obsessed with matters gastronomical. Not in…
Everybody is a genius, but if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”
— Albert Einstein
Pithyism #60/24/365
A MOMENT LASTS AS LONG as it needs to — be it seconds, hours, years, or lifetimes.
Mentors — An Appreciation
BECAUSE OF DARRYL CURTIS, I still say “deh-TAILS” instead of “DEE-tails.” Darryl was my boss at Santa Rosa news-talk radio station KSRO more than 20 years ago. To say I learned from him everything I know about radio reporting would…
Truth v. Lies
SOME TIME AGO, I HAD a Facebook encounter with a dear friend who’s something of an Evangelical Atheist. It all started when another dear friend posted the following “meme” to my “wall:” OMNISM: THE BELIEF THAT NO RELIGION IS THE…