On the New Nature of Reality
Imagine coming across this picture on the internet: A person is viciously hitting an old lady, who is leaning back on her walker for support, face horrified. A stream of blood flows from her nose while the perpetrator gleefully mugs for the camera, proud of the abuse. That perpetrator is you. You can’t believe it. You’ve never done anything like this in your life — wouldn’t even think of doing such a thing. You must have a doppelgänger somewhere. But no, the closer you look, you just know it’s actually you. Such is the level of credibility we have arrived…
Wes Anderson on Lockdown
Interpreting “Asteroid City” through the filter of the COVID Pandemic NOTE: This analysis discusses the film in depth, and therefore necessarily contains spoilers. If you haven’t seen the film, you might want to avoid this article. The descriptions will hopefully…
Quarantine Cyberterrorism
A number of years ago, I was hired by an IT firm to help test their network defenses at a secure facility. I went on-site in plain clothes, sat in a public area, got on the public WiFi, and attempted…
On the Twentieth Anniversary of My Father’s Death
I’ve thought for weeks about how I would approach this day, what I would write. In the end, I didn’t even know where to start. The simple truth is, my dad has been dead exactly twenty years today. My thoughts…
Thirty Years in Florida
Exactly thirty years ago today, on my 21st birthday, I arrived in Naples, Florida. Around 11 am the 15th of May, 1989, I took my Spanish Literature final at LSU. When everyone was done, our small class walked together to…
Sqzlflik, the New Prescription Drug
Do you ever get that feeling? You know. Yeah, that one. If so, you may need Sqzlflik. In people aged 22 years and 8 months to 73 years and 5 days, Sqzlflik has been shown to alleviate that feeling. Some…
Brevity
In Hamlet, Polonius begins a speech with, “Since brevity is the soul of wit, and tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes, I will be brief.” Centuries later, an episode of the Simpsons (“Mr. Lisa Goes to Washington”) cleverly edits Shakespeare…
First, Mankind
Last Sunday, I saw “First Man”, a film about NASA’s run-up to the Apollo 11 moon landing. It’s told primarily through the eyes of Neil Armstrong (Ryan Gosling) and his family. I was just over a year old when the…
Bounty
The moment we bought the land where we would build our house, I started preparing it for a garden. That was March, 1995. Since then, we’ve overcome various pest infestations, minor floods, severe drought, several tropical storms, and a pair…
The Morality of Eating
After reading this article recommended by my brother Adam, we discussed whether all forms of eating are equally moral or immoral. Put another way, why do some consider eating a plant — a living thing — inherently more acceptable than eating…
F**k Anthony Bourdain
Everybody reading this is likely aware of Anthony Bourdain’s first book, Kitchen Confidential, in which he exposed some of the – pardon the pun – less savory aspects of the food prep world. In it, he discussed everything from how…
