I’m no gourmet. I grew up on fish sticks for Friday dinners, waffles, pan-fried chicken, creamed peas and potpies. I understand a little about good cuisine, but like with wine, where I am very clear what I prefer but know little about it, I am hopeless when it comes to having the encyclopedic knowledge of … [read more]
Narrative
L.A. and Ellroy
I love LA. Not many admit to such a thing. It is orthodoxy to hate Los Angeles north of the 405 and east of the 101. I saw Joni Mitchell at Dorothy Chandler in March of 1974, with Tom Scott, Max Guerin, Robben Ford and Max Bennett. Joni confessed her love of LA and from … [read more]
Doing Just This One Thing
I don’t think anyone twisted my arm in the business environment and forced me to adopt the misguided notion of “multi-tasking”, which first showed up on the business landscape in 1965, referring to the capabilities of an IBM System/365 computer. Someone thought it wise that we emulate machines. We can’t count on the corporate world … [read more]
Thank you!
(This is an image I made almost ten years ago, outside Hangzhou, PRC, in Zhejiang Province, west of Shanghai, at a wonderful temple called Lingyin Si, set next to Xi Hu, or West Lake, one of the most beautiful spots in China. This is a Chan temple established in 328 CE, a century before Bodhidharma. … [read more]
Meditation On Not Being, At All
I just received my card in the mail. It’s official. I am now old. Bona fide, as Ulysses Everett McGill would say. In another year, I will receive a second card further confirming the inevitable. I am at peace with this other than that, relative to my earned benefits, it feels like I have been … [read more]
A Really Big Lunch
Jim Harrison has been one of my lighthouses of artistic honesty for years. He exposes himself and those around him in bare naked prose and poetry. It’s a guilty pleasure to read someone else’s guilty pleasures. Jim’s primary stock in trade has been poems, short stories, novellas and novels, though, as a food writer he … [read more]