Perhaps you saw “Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter” in theaters this summer. Or you’ve read Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, the best-selling novel. Maybe you’ve seen or read one of the millions of derivations or mash-ups or sequels or post-scripts or…
Category: Telling Stories
The Day Before Tomorrow
Today, I feel like I finally hit my stride for productivity and balance this vacation. I return to work on Wednesday. I’d imagine this is a lot like what retirees feel in their waning weeks of work at a particular…
The Pursuit of Productivity
I think my definition of productivity may be different than everyone else’s. Granted that the word carries very capitalistic connotations, that the implications of the word convey an image of a factory worker plugging away at widgets or perhaps an…
Mother, May I
It’s easy to forget what this year was supposed to be about. I don’t even mean all that long ago, before my life caved in and I was left staring at the daily wreckage of my own dreams. I mean…
The Timelessness of Green Fields
There is a blue sign at the top of the hill by the roadside gone T-shaped and it says No Sledding and it is the kind of sign that shows the wear and age of countless police officers standing by…
Ten Ninety-Nine
The Raritan River flows gently southward, bedecked on either side by paths, one cracked red asphalt raised high above the waterline, the other muddy disintegrating soil strewn with the exposed roots of sickly trees. On one side, western, the vantage…
An Opportunity to Learn
Part of the problem with a worldview devoted to science and the belief that everything is completely random and coincidental is that it can blind us to the pattern-seeking wisdom innate to our species. Thus people can see events transpire…
Hello Dali: the Life and Times of a Surreal Week
Have barely a moment to update things, so this will have to be short and sweet. As regular readers will have noted from the string of Duck and Covers with no other content lately, it’s been an insanely busy week.…
Wrestling the Shark
There are a lot of metaphors out there about the pyrrhic challenges of wrestling the proverbial bear. But I think I prefer a metaphor involving wrestling a shark. For one, the shark is virtually limbless, so I like the visage…
Mania!
Kids, it’s been a manic day in Highland Park. Say what you will about the downside of being a manic depressive or bipolar or whatever the trendy new pharmaceutical term for my outlook on the world is, but the upside…