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My love letter to writing
Writing is one of humanity’s oldest and most transformative inventions. Long before the printing press, long before the Internet, and even long before bound books, people felt the urge to mark symbols onto stone, clay, and parchment. Those early scratches were more than just records of grain or trade; they were the first attempts to…
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Lorem ipsum
I began my senior year at St. Francis High School in La Cañada Flintridge, CA, as the editor-in-chief of the school’s yearbook. Being more of a writer, and yearbooks being more visual (pictures and all), I had wanted to be on the school newspaper, which had a very clever name. Our sporting teams were called…
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The Stuffing Letter
I have kept a journal since I was 19. A “journal” is like a diary, except entries are not made daily (though they can be) and it is not meant to be a record of anything: such as, “met Ryan for coffee,” or “saw Jennifer Aniston at the Farmer’s Market.” I use my journaling (the…
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The City and the Pillar
Gore Vidal was 21 (photo at left) when he published his first novel, Williwaw, in 1946. He was an out gay man at a time when to be openly gay was fraught with genuine peril – both professionally and personally – though he believed that all humans are naturally bisexual, and this natural inclination is…
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On Bathtubs and Bunkum
On December 28, 1917, American journalist and cultural critic Henry Louis Mencken, better known as H. L. Mencken, published an article in the New York Evening Mail entitled “A Neglected Anniversary.” In it, he described the history of the bathtub in America, making particular note of how people, believing bathtubs posed a health risk, were slow to…
Your mileage may vary.