There are many things that are just ‘human.’ We all need to love. We all need to hope that there’s a tomorrow. We all need to laugh. We all have times when tears are all we have to express ourselves. And yet for all those things that we have in common; our cultures create chasms between otherwise amiable human beings.

Sometimes it’s a hegemonic encounter. As Masami Teraoka demonstrated in his series of drawings about the effects of American culture on Japanese culture; it can be more than jarring. It can distort or even destroy an ancient culture.

Then, there is the other problem of emigration. The newly arrived immigrant can find it hard to maintain those things that defined his/her culture. Often this becomes so difficult that assimilation is the preferred option. Then, the old culture becomes an artefact. Like a song that you can’t quite remember the lyrics to, it fades in and out of the assimilated person’s consciousness. After a generation or two, the old song is often lost. (more…)

I’ve been obsessed lately by thoughts that I had put to rest a while ago. At least I thought that I’d put them to rest. But, it’s a funny thing about bad memories; they keep hammering at the door of consciousness and won’t go away.

I consider the site of the former World Trade Center in New York to be sacred ground. There are souls that will be there until the earth has been consumed by the sun. Everyone who was vaporised, everyone who leapt rather than face the horror behind them, everyone who stood and died: they’re all there. They came down with the towers.

The mangled steel and broken concrete can be taken away, but the souls of those who died there can’t be moved. (more…)

Where does love go? How do you know when it’s gone? Since we’ve just been through the ritual of Valentine’s Day, it seems an appropriate time to ask that question. I, of course, have a theory. Of course I do.

I think all you have to do is look at how that person sees you. How can you tell that? Well, dig out those old photos. Here’s my theory: you can tell how a person feels about by how they photograph you. Trust me in this one. I’m a professional and I have a lifetime of experience.

Now, the picture here should have given the woman pause. She was on her honeymoon and her new husband took the photo. Now what was his focus? Yeah, it was that huge pipe; she’s a secondary player at best. It does not bode well. Of course, I have the advantage here. I know that less than 10 years later these two would divorce with such acrimony that they would never speak again.

So, dig out those photos. If you’re a little blip in his/her viewfinder, if he/she always seems to get you at a bad angle; then you’re in trouble, my friend.

The picture was taken at Boulder Dam in 1937.

Please give what you can to Médecins sans Frontières (Doctors without Borders).

And, of course

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The picture at the edge of the universe

Assuming that there is an end to the universe, I’ve always wondered what’s at its edge. At the same time, the size of the universe strains my pea brain. To presume there is a size to the universe also presumes that it has an edge. If it’s infinite, then can be no end to it. That said, thinking about a universe with either no end or with a defined edge scares the crap out of me.

I love to follow stories of daring-do by rocket scientists and their various toys. We might think of these engineers and scientists as dour, humourless folk; but they must have a twinkle in their eyes to name a spacecraft Stardust. (more…)

What do we remember? Or maybe the question should be: how well do we remember? Are our memories to be trusted? How much do we have invested in what we remember?

One of my daughters was hesitant to go play outside after a rainstorm. I asked her why. She said, “I’ll get a cold.” I told her, “You can’t get cold from being cold, you get colds from germs. You could even get a cold in the sunshine. Go outside, have fun.” (more…)

I’ve been scanning old photos. I’m trying to leave something for posterity, even though I realize that I’m the only one that cares about these images. When I came across this one, I started to wonder how much of all of our lives are kept alive in these old images. Let me explain.

The cake is for a 3rd birthday party, my 3rd birthday party. It looks like I made a good, but not overwhelming haul that day. The little box in the upper left looks like jewelry, maybe it’s a ring? I’d say that the one in the lower right was probably a book. Six presents for a 3-year old isn’t bad at all.

The most important thing in the photo is, of course, in the center: it’s the cake. That cake has assumed hagiographic proportions in my memories. It was a very special cake that had been ordered from the City of Paris bakery in San Francisco. The City of Paris was a department store where I would have one of my better tantrums as a child, but that’s not what this photo was about. It’s a beautiful cake. It’s almost too beautiful for a 3-year old. Therein hangs a tale.

Since my birthday was celebrated on the 4th of July, my cakes usually had a patriotic theme. There are three drum majors on the left of the cake. They are probably plastic. The red, white and blue roses, however, were definitely not plastic. They were made out of pure sugar. Evidently they could be saved “forever and ever.” Why anyone would want to save them forever and ever is beyond my comprehension. Yes, I ate them. I popped them in my mouth and thoroughly consumed those little American beauties. (more…)

I’ve never been one for making New Year’s resolutions. I am an inveterate list-maker. Throughout the year I constantly make lists. Since I don’t see myself as being at all disciplined, I am always gobsmacked when I actually complete all the tasks on my latest to-do list. Not that I do always manage that.

This last year was a case in point. I finished most tasks, but farted about with the most important task of all: I didn’t finished revising a book. I meant to, I wanted to, I even made headway with it; but when it came down to it I didn’t finish it. It has assumed the top spot on this year’s first list. It’s like a big blot in my copybook and every time I go back to that page I can see it. (more…)

Some say that the eyes are windows on the soul. I know better. They’re windows all right, but we don’t see with them. We see with our brains: the eyes are just windows. How do I know this? Well, my little ‘windows’ aren’t wired properly to my brain. I am amblyopic. I have a dominant eye and an amblyopic one. The amblyopic one looks lovingly across the bridge of my nose at the dominant one.

In the great scheme of things, this isn’t all that important. Most of my life I could see just fine with my one good eye. True, people at a distance of more then 5 feet away thought that I was looking at something over their right shoulder rather than at them. But, I could live with that. I did insist that photos be taken on my right side as it lessened the effect. Also, I never allowed it to be said that I had a “lazy” eye. ‘Lazy’ eye inferred that if my eye could just get its act together, all would be well. If only.

As a small child, I was taken to the famous Dr. Hans Barkan in San Francisco where we lived. He operated on my eyes when I was 3 years old. That procedure was only cosmetic, it didn’t fix the eyes. That solution would only be somewhere in my brain, my twisted little brain.

After we moved from San Francisco to Los Angeles I was sent back one June when I about 8 years old, on my own, to see Dr. Barkan. Well, I wasn’t entirely alone. I was put on a plane by my Mum and sent to Oakland because my Aunt Fritzie was there. Aunt Fritzie was newly married to Uncle Paul. Uncle Paul was a paraplegic and they were struggling financially to get along. It was made clear to me immediately by my auntie that I was an imposition, a burden. (more…)

This has been yet another annus horribilis. Starting with Boxing Day 2004, Mother Nature has shown us, lest we forget, who’s in charge. From earthquakes to tsunamis to hurricanes and floods; we look weak and our responses have been inadequate on every level.

Our bodies politic have been shaken to the core. Don’t feel that it’s just your system that’s in turmoil: institutions everywhere have been tested and found wanting.

Our faith in those who would lead us has been shaken to the core. Those in power abuse those fragile rights that we, the governed, have always been told are inalienable. Those out of power seem unable to find their way out of the desert. Their voices are discordant when they need to speak as one.

So, where does that leave us? If we have seen the enemy and he is us; then we need to look inward for the answer to what ails us. The human experiment evolves, but it’s based on one basic premise: we must care for one another to survive.

Hobbes said that we must make sacrifices to live inside the leviathan. We give up those freedoms to do as we wish in order that our lives will not be, “short, nasty and brutish.” We can live out our existences inside the leviathan because we are inside. But in order for the experiment to work, we can’t atomize ourselves: e pluribus Unum. And that whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

Here’s to the good ship of state and all those sail in her. May the seas be calm in her wake. May the wind fill her sails. May the setting sun see her safely home.

I was just watching “Rashomon” again. Our separate realities is a theme I keep returning to in my meanderings. It lives side by side with my view of human relations as an existential exercise: we create our realities.

In “Rashomon,” whose story was true? The thief, the wife, the husband? Was the woodsman, in the end, telling the true story, even though we find out that he’s a thief? Or, did they each create their own reality because that was what each of them could live with? In statistical analysis, triangulation gives a semblance of the reality behind the numbers. In “Rashomon,” there is no triangulation. It’s true that the thief and woodsman both say the thief killed the husband. But, is that just what conforms to what they each need to be the truth? (more…)