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READING FICTION IN DECLINE?

Reading fiction has been in decline since the first person put a book down and said, “Not for me. Thanks.” A reader doesn’t finish every book. They don’t go into a library with the goal of reading everything. Maybe read everything one author ever wrote, but not everything from everyone. Which brings up one question:

BORING, TRIVIAL, POINTLESS LIFE? GOOD JOB

Doing a good job means what? Following orders and delivering a finished product according to the highest standards of the industry? Let’s not get carried away. How about finishing on time with something that works the way it’s supposed to work? You can do that and your masterpiece at the same time. If you don’t […]

HIDDEN SONGS OF THE OREGON COAST

People play their guitar in the basement alone looking for hidden songs. Hidden songs? There you are moving around the fretboard and something sounds different. You play it again. Nice. While you play you remember the old times you had when you were younger. Like yesterday.

COLD WET OREGON WITH EXTRA WATER

On a cold wet Oregon day the beach was covered as far as the eye could see, and since it’s flat you can see a long way. Jelly fish, man of war, or whatever it was, it was a mass die-off of squishy critters up and down the beach, a purple carpet of goo to […]

DO MORE? LIKE WHAT

You need to do more to matter? That’s what you ask yourself when someone says,  “You need to do more to matter.” Have you heard that? I still hear it and I’m not some spring chicken pecking my way around the pen. When is enough enough?

BIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY YOU SAY?

I just finished reading about one man’s dedication and defense of the biographical essay and thought, ‘blog post?’ Like most writers, he lost me in the digressions. Like most online readers, I scrolled on. But here’s what you need to know:

BIG TIME FOR BIG CITY PORTLAND, AND OREGON

Big city Portland gets the name for being the biggest city in the state. How big?  The next biggie, Eugene, is three times smaller, rounded up and down for 600k people in one, 200k in the other. (K = 1000)

LUNAR NEW YEAR AND MORE IN PORTLAND

My small group of five went to the Lunar New Year Parade in downtown Portland. Yes, that Portland. If you’ve heard about it and wonder, it’s not a smoldering city rocked by insurrection. But it was rocking. After living in bigger cities where most people visit and leave, including Portland, I was thrilled to see […]

WE DON’T NEED NO EDUCATION, (FOR ANOTHER BRICK IN THE WALL)

From twitterX:   I get yelled at for saying this but for many hundreds of years people went to university not to get diplomas or be employable but because immersion in the humanities was considered foundational to a good life, and school must return to its original purpose: the joy of learning.   Doesn’t that […]

WHAT IS A PHILOSOPHICO DIARY

A philosophico diary is where the writer writes what comes to them, like boomerpdx. What comes to me are examples, evidence, of the past coming forward. Today is reflected in the past. How does that work? Everything worth doing has been done, just not by you. Or me. Take last night for example.