Handout to Mouth The other day I went to the Apple Store at the North County Mall near here. Let’s start by understanding that I am not at all a Mall Rat. In fact, I stay as far away from Malls as I possibly can. I have a problem with consumer inundation and the specialty of big department stores and, indeed, malls overall, is to inundate the consumer with choices. I’m always amazed when I…
An Overindulgence of Crocs Last summer I did something very much on purpose to see if I could handle the trauma. I bought a pair of black Crocs to take and wear around Western Ireland during our family vacation, with the idea that I would dispose of them there (they are $45 shoes after all and made of cheap plastic) rather than lug them home in the suitcase. This was a new concept for me…
Beyond the Garbage Bins It’s Wednesday morning at 6am and I’m sitting barefoot in the jump seat of the Sprinter Van we have rented for a trial run. I have put the blinds next to me up because, while Kim has fallen back to sleep, I know she wears both an eye mask and ear plugs and will not be bothered by my rousing. I am feeling very alive this morning, but can’t claim that…
Project Sailshade “Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun” according to the 1931 Noel Coward song and reinforced in the titling of Joe Cocker’s 1970 album of similar name. Noel Coward wrote the song while traveling from Hanoi to Saigon, so he had tropical heat on his mind. One of the great lines in the song refers to the “Noonday gun” in reference to the fact that in Hong Kong the noonday…
Going Honkytonk I am the furthest thing you will find from a person who relates to country music. When I hear of people going to Nashville to visit the heart of the beast at either or both the Country Music Hall of Fame or the Grand Ole Opry, I just scratch my head in wonder. All that said, I think two of my favorite movies for some strange reason are Sissy Spacek and Tommy Lee…
Coming Out of Hibernation Over the past few months, Kim and I have gotten into the practice of regularly measuring our temperature, pulse and oxygenation levels in search of any signs of the Coronavirus. This started by watching video clips of Chinese state agents pointing temperature guns at the foreheads of transiting passengers to determine risk of infection. This predated the thought that asymptomatic transmission was a major concern and seemed like a sensible, though…
The End of the World In case you hadn’t noticed, I like bold headlines. All writers become aware that their readers decide in the first paragraph of their stories whether this among many stories available to all readers at all times will interest them and be worth reading in its entirety. Sometimes, when a thought for a story strikes me, I sit and ponder a title or headline before I organize and commit to writing…
Pilgrims’ Progress Some of the greatest works of literature have been penned by people during their incarceration. While its origins are somewhat questionable as to who told the story versus wrote the story, The Travels of Marco Polo were put to paper while Marco Polo sat in a Genovese prison (Venice and Genoa were rival city-states and commercial competitors in the thirteenth century). Jump forward some four hundred years and move from merchant ardor to…
The Drunken Pirate My friend Steve writes a blog like I do. In fact, while he has been a writer since long before we knew each other (we met almost exactly twenty years ago), I think my blog prompted him to start his own blog (https://stevelarsen.net/yeah-but-do-you-have-a-finger-from-a-dead-pirate/). Yesterday he wrote a story about the finger of a dead pirate. I won’t ruin the story by summarizing it but will say that it got me thinking…
The Dinner Table In the world of banking, it shouldn’t surprise you to learn that most big firms manage somehow to insure that their top two people are not so fervently politically aligned that when (notice I did not say “if”) the opposing party takes office, the firm is not left without sympathetic inroads into the halls of power, perhaps when they need it the most. I have never figured out exactly how that process…