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Orange please
I have already told you of how my life of crime was over before it began thanks to an ill-fated attempt to steal a flashing orange traffic barricade in the dead of night with a bunch of friends when we were teenagers. But that was not my only brush with the law. In my 30s,…
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“First they came for…”
Martin Niemöller, the German theologian and Lutheran pastor, is a complicated figure. You may not know his name, but you are, no doubt, familiar with his famous quote which begins “First they came for…”. The quote is sometimes mistakenly referred to as a poem. And through the years, it has been adapted and modified to…
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Oh. My. God.
I had a post all written and ready to go for today. I was just polishing it and fact checking a few assertions I had made. It was a fun one for my “curiosity” category about etiquette and how the concept of what is appropriate or proper has changed over time. For example, you’re on…
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The Mighty Met
If you asked me what I listened to, musically, growing up, I would proudly proclaim, without thinking twice, “oh I loved progressive rock – bands like Rush, Genesis, Yes, ELP, Jethro Tull, Supertramp, and of course Pink Floyd.” I got my first bike when I was 9. I put that bike, a yellow 1975 Schwinn…
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Stampeding Ostriches and a Homicidal Pope
It includes an observatory, an amphitheater, a zoo, two museums – one dedicated to trains, one dedicated to the history of the American west, a merry-go-round, and not one but two golf courses within the boundaries of its 4,310 acres. It is the second-largest city park in California, after Mission Trails Preserve in San Diego,…
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In like a lion, out like a lamb
Today is the first day of March, so it seems fitting to examine that old saying “March comes in like a lion, and goes out like a lamb.” I suppose, if I’m honest (and I like to think I am), ‘fitting’ is in the eye of the beholder. But it’s my website, and I say…
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Topophilia Au Jus
I’ll begin with the title of this post. “Topophilia” comes from the Greek topos meaning ‘place’ and philia meaning ‘love of’ – so it literally means the love of a place and is usually mixed with the shared sense of cultural identity that people in that place develop. It’s why people from New York City…
Your mileage may vary.