Essays, Fiction, and Books
American people, like people everywhere, have a nature. And human nature is such that, sometimes, we place too much value in what we don’t understand and, by not understanding it, invest it with some mysterious and unmerited quality which defies expression. And here, that is politics. Americans are doers and fixers. Why can’t we fix […]
They should have known people weren’t really reasonable when they saw they’d buy at a joint what they could get for 1/10 the price at the grocer. Maybe they go for the motion of the bottle lifted from the shelf and poured into piled saucers and brandy glasses. Maybe the sound and the sight of […]
“Dad, the news is on.” “Isn’t it always? I can’t watch that.” “Why don’t you like the news?” “I don’t hate the news I just know what it is.” “I didn’t say you hated it.” “Ok I hate it.” “Why do you hate it.” “Because someone I trust who worked in the news said being […]
This is the reading list Earnest Hemingway recommended to a kid in 1934. The kid told him he wanted to be a writer and asked him what he should, therefore, read. Hemingway would have been 35 at the time and had authored numerous novels including The Sun Also Rises copyrighted in 1925: The Blue Hotel—Stephen […]
He ordered huevos rancheros and a beer for breakfast. Above the outdoor bar, a basketball game played on the TV which no one watched. He angled his barstool to face her. After inquiring further, the bartender clasped both hands and hinted at a bow. Several goldens ranging from deep red to light blond, like the […]
Click below to read other articles from 2018 published at thelatest.com. Thank you very much! https://thelatest.com/tlt/more-questions-in-politics-please-wall-street-politics-history-1512249568 https://thelatest.com/tlt/silicon-valley-and-the-jobs-revolution-to-come-technology-business-economics-1513088650 https://thelatest.com/tlt/the-revolution-will-not-be-televised-politics-media-tech-1513696954 https://thelatest.com/tlt/dostoevsky-american-exceptionalism-government-media-literature-1539129426 https://thelatest.com/tlt/the-front-lines-of-taxes-taxes-business-law-1514907871
Click below to read my take on Ernest Hemingway and WWI. Merry Christmas! https://thelatest.com/tlt/hemingway-timely-resurgence-hemingway-wwi-peter-jackson-1545429273
William B. Yeats—Irish poet—said John Stuart Mill—philosopher of democracy—had a good handle on where good prose comes from when he said—I’m paraphrasing—”rhetoric is spoken but poetry is overheard.” I think he means that poetry is what you get when you’re not trying too hard. Have you ever said “wow, I should write that down, that’s […]
Something strange happens through repetition. Something hidden breaks free. We know there is magic in ordinary, simple, everyday things. The first time a child learns that what he sees and hears and experiences, every day, is an illusion containing deeper mysteries, is when he discovers the strangeness of his own name. One day, for no […]
The only thing I can control is how hard I work at something I believe is good. After law school a lawyer I know told me studying was a great stress reliever. I’m sorry, what? I was prepping for the California bar exam. Wouldn’t half a day of Seinfeld reruns be a better stress reliever? […]