IT’S THE QUIET THRILL OF your first look through a telescope and seeing Saturn’s rings for yourself. It’s the hush before the planetarium show begins. It’s the ancientness of the constellations. It’s knowing that others before you, perhaps all the…
Tag: …wow.
I mean “wow.” Just … wow.
Night, Fog, and One Hell of a Bang
IF I HAD KNOWN THAT our galleon would collide with a freighter, I would have worn a life jacket. The time was February 1988. Through a curious series of circumstances, I had signed aboard the replica galleon Golden Hinde II…
Praying for Strength, and Other Sure Things
IS G?D GRANTING FAVORS, OR am I just fooling my brain into higher functioning? That’s the question I ask myself every time I pray for either greater strength (read: endurance) or greater understanding. That’s about all I ever pray for[1],…
THERE’S (more) ‘ing WATER on MARS!
BACK IN 2008, THE METAPHORAGER gleefully spread the word that water, at least in trace amounts, had been found on Mars. Now there’s a(n apparent) pile of it. Using an advanced form of radar, scientists appear to have discovered more…
Fie on Death, and the Pale Horse He Rode In On
He was a man. Take him for all in all. I shall not look upon his like again. — William Shakespeare, Hamlet WHEN I FIRST MOVED INTO an Oakland apartment in 1986 with John Woods “Wheels” “Spoonhead” “Calvin Biggins” Wheeler,…
“When young people ask me about death, I tell them: ‘We die a little every day. When you get to be my age, you get used to it.'”
— Near-centenarian Richard Meyers
Not Like It Used To Was
Mom in the drug store Called out to her son: “Brooklyn!” Am I getting old?
#oldpunksneverdie
Never thought I’d hear Safeway’s in-house music channel play “London Calling” this morning. But I sang along with it anyway.
Deadline: 2036
ONE THING I MISS ABOUT the pre-21st-century days is the sense of humanity plunging headlong toward some destination. These days, that collective goal seems hellbound and handbasket-wrapped. But in the days and years leading up to 1/1/2000, the Great Rollover,…
A Complex Whiteness
YOU MIGHT THINK WHITE FLAGS mean “Surrender,” but if you’re talking about Aaron Fein‘s “White Flags” art piece — all the world’s flags rendered full-size in white cloth and embroidery — you’d better not say so in a public forum,…
Monumental Question
“Do you honor the hole, or refill it with something?” (This may also apply to more than just the WTC memorial. Me, I vote for honoring the hole.)
Then
EVEN AFTER TEN YEARS, THE memories and pain are still fresh when I think of them. I don’t think of them often. My habit in those days was to check the Ha’aretz news ticker with my morning coffee. “Hmm… soccer…