Magnificent Octopus

I recently completed a MOOC on neuroeconomics . Basically, the study of decision-making. It's a little more exacting than other courses ...

Why is there something instead of nothing? That's the question — along with some variations ("What banged? Why did it bang? And wha...

I've been a bit irritable this week. There was a bit of stress in getting the kid back to school — her supplies, our routine — but not e...

Importance of names — Most appellations appear to displease them; they would prefer not to be discussed at all, I believe. The expression ...

Park air welcomes me; the many thousand green leaves of the lofty trees are lips that wish me good morning: So you're up already too? In...

If you love freedom, if you think the human condition is dignified by privacy, by the right to be left alone, by the right to explore your w...

There are some notable exceptions to the generally accepted truth that a book is better than its movie adaptation. Jaws comes to mind. Chil...

She's gone now, for a week. But she left me this picture on the whiteboard.

It happened far too often. Normally death came at night, taking a person in their sleep, stopping their heart or tickling them awake, leadin...

The kid's been out at my mother-in-law's off and on for the last little while. I guess the subject of her upcoming flight to visit m...

Ursula K. Le Guin in The Left Hand of Darkness invents an alien world that has its own cultures, religions, mythologies, and languages. Her...

I love Beethoven! There's a new book out, Beethoven: Anguish and Triumph , by Jan Swafford, which seems to be striking a chord with th...

Following the east bank of the great Rive Kunderer I came on my third morning in Orgoreyn to Mishnory, the largest city on that world. In ...

I've been off-grid for a few days, which meant missing Jack White at Osheaga. In recompense: Literary connections: Jack White, mus...

There was a smell of Time in the air tonight. He smiled and turned the fancy in his mind. There was a thought. What did Time smell like? Lik...

"Everything You Always Wanted to Know About: Sects, Sets, Sex, prefix, frankforts, Waldorf, idle, American, peanuts, gin, Heritage, cab...

"I believe in the things that were done, and there are evidences of many things done on Mars. There are streets and houses, and there a...

I'm at my mom's. Here's an old school assignment we dug up. ************* Egg Man - from aged, yellowed lava — when world c...

I've never read Ursula K. Le Guin. Not really. The Dispossessed was on the syllabus of a course I took in university, but we ended up s...

I'm not sure why this poem speaks to me so, nor do I recall the precise circumstance of my encountering it ( via ) and it speaking to me...