Fallen leaves, yellow and brown, cover the courtyard. High in the branches, a few green stragglers hang on stubbornly. Looking up, I feel like I’m watching myself hanging on, and then suddenly, I’m watching myself watching myself. Who am I, the watcher or the watched?... Continue

My wife and I recently went to see “A Complete Unknown” about Bob Dylan, and it prompted a night of remembrance and reflection on my life in the mid-sixties. Brought up in the middle-class suburbs of New York City, I enrolled at NYU’s Institute of... Continue

Some years ago I removed a stand of bamboo and replaced it with two 3’ x 8’ livestock troughs that I converted to raised garden beds. I’ve always been a gardening enthusiast, a self-confessed hortisexual who loves plants, but our home is shaded by big... Continue

After briefly attending Rhode Island School of Design in the mid-sixties, I moved to San Francisco. At nineteen years of age I managed to get a job working in the copy center at Golden Gate College. Located in the basement, the copy center had no... Continue

“The candle that burns at both ends burns half as long, and you have burned so very brightly, Roy.” - Dr. Eldon Tyrel to Replicant Roy Blatty in the movie “Blade Runner.” It’s the subject of nearly all our entertainment and scrutiny: how and why... Continue

Revolutions are nothing new; uprisings have plagued humanity for many centuries, perhaps forever. Always about wealth and power, which are essentially the same, styles of revolution vary, however. In general terms, revolutions are of three kinds. There is revolution by the disenfranchised poor against the... Continue

“How many bags do you want?” So indicated the screen at Whole Foods. “Are you sure you only want one?” I turned to my friend Rick, who often supervises the self-checkout registers. “They ask more questions about how many paper bags I use than anything... Continue

If this recent election indicates anything, people have deep dissatisfaction with how things feel in America, and for a majority, it feels like shit. In the thoughts and feelings of many, the institutions we have created to ensure the health, wealth, and welfare of society... Continue

I grew up at the feet of a fabulous cook. My mother was a natural, able to make something delicious out of almost nothing. She was not recipe dependent, although she had taken classes in French cooking and had a thick notebook of recipes. Accordingly,... Continue