Tag: learned

What I wish I’d known before I had to learn it.

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 other things: the importance of Shakespeare, how to compose a good headline, and to write both tightly and brightly. And always to show. Never tell.

Because of Mrs. Boisvert, and my eighth-grade grade English teacher, Mr. Sullivan, I have had a career in newspaper journalism and a modest pile of writing awards. (Also, this nifty blog.) Continue reading “Let Us Sit Upon the Ground and Sing Glad Songs to the Memory of Groovy English Teachers”

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 Berkeley print shop whose required competencies were far over my head, I was at a loss as to what to do next. But not for long — thanks to my erstwhile roommate and pagan-brother, John “Wheels” Wheeler.

“You might consider becoming a bike messenger,” he told me. “You could even use my spare bike.”

Who could refuse an offer like that? Continue reading “Neither Rain Nor Snow Nor Sudden Car Door”

How Many Dead Friends Are There?

James_Sputnik_Gjerde_1962-2002
James Sputnik Gjerde: 1/24/1962 – 12//27/2002
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 72 views in the past twelve months alone; it’s the second-most viewed post in that time, and the tenth-most of all time. As I favor artful bluntness in my headlines, it seemed natural to title it thus.

Little did I know that it would generate such traffic.

Since the ‘logs showed this article had surfaced via search-engines, I first thought it was from people wanting to make one last goodbye Sputnik-ward. Continue reading “How Many Dead Friends Are There?”

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 illegitimati carborundum” (look ’em up). It’s how he manages to make everything he writes sound like a personal communication to the reader. It’s the little phrase-gems he drops off-handedly like “reality-tunnel,” “domesticated primates,” or “guerrilla ontology.” It’s his nimble skipping from neuroscience to neuropoetry to neuroanalysis to neuropolitics. (It’s also that “neuro-” is his favorite prefix.) Continue reading “Why I Love: Robert Anton Wilson”

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 me if I wanted a beer — my favorite brand, in fact. I demurred, until he convinced me otherwise with the above epigram.

Since then I have done a poor job with keeping up my side of the bargain. I am a pretty fierce let-me-do-it-myself-er. But I’m trying to do better.

It’s important to let people help you. It makes them feel good. It makes them feel needed and useful. And isn’t that the best gift we can give each other?

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 a bad way; perhaps “obsessed” is the wrong word. “Deeply fascinated” would be a better descriptor. I simply enjoy cooking, eating, discussing, and reading about food in all its wonderful forms — especially if they’re unfamiliar to me.

3. I come by it honestly. When I was a kid, whenever we’d go to a restaurant and see something unfamiliar on the menu, my dad would say “Bring us two orders of whatever that is.” Continue reading “5 Thoughts: Confessions of a Vicarious Eater”

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 be an understatement, just as it would be to name Bill Hoban as being responsible for everything I learned about newspapering during my 1998-2003 tenure at the Sonoma Index-Tribune. I owe both of these guys a lot; not only for teaching me about the craft, but also about the ethics involved — and the sheer joy of doing the job. Continue reading “Mentors — An Appreciation”

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 ONLY TRUTH, BUT THAT TRUTHS ARE FOUND IN THEM ALL.

To which my atheist friend replied:

Alas, some lies, too. And little explanation of how to sift one from the other.

Continue reading “Truth v. Lies”

No Boomer I

Click to enlarge.
WELL, THAT’S NOT QUITE ACCURATE — I am, at least technically, a Boomer. But I’m also a member of one of the Lost Generations. And I’m not the only one.

I was born in 1962. That makes me, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, a Baby Boomer; a member of that generation born after World War II and before 1964. But I don’t feel comfortable with that identification. Not because it’s fashionable to vilify Boomers (actually, it’s always been somewhat fashionable to vilify every generation but one’s own), but because of my tastes and cultural referents. Continue reading “No Boomer I”

First Graf: Understanding Comics

THIS BOOK WILL CHANGE THE way you think about (as author Scott McCloud concisely defines it) “sequential art.”

McCloud takes us inside the art form to explain how and why comics/graphic novels work. He tracks the 3,000-year history of Sequential Art from its Egyptian origins to the present day (well, the book’s 1993 publication anyway), breaking down the elements of composition, line, color, symbols, time, and the use of words; he even has a chapter on the unspoken relationship between panels and the space between them. Let’s let the chapter titles speak for themselves: Continue reading “First Graf: Understanding Comics”

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