Hello my friends – here’s the latest episode of “Hard Truth and a Big Hug”. It’s a small part of a book that I haven’t yet got around to publishing – but I thought the big ideas and the final take-away were
Toffel digs inIllustrations by Andrew Rewfoe Foerster, from the upcoming book – “Stymie and Toffel” This is a weird and difficult time to be a kid. Childhood has actually been increasingly weird and difficult for several generations now, but the truly shocking
Hi Folks Just working on making Large Ess Small Press more fun to browse and more enjoyable to read. Might take me a few days to get all of the appropriate switches flipped appropriately. Do please bear with me in the meantime.
Captain Bananas – Millennium Gorilla There is an old idea in Buddhism – attachment is suffering – which has always bothered me in a very stimulating way – because it is at once obviously true, right from the very first time we
I keep working over and over again on the one great essay which can make everything important clear at last. Of course, with every pass the goal recedes for a very obvious reason – as simple as my desire to be helpful
Apologies for my absence – not ’cause I don’t love ya, I promise! More essays, podcasts, photography, poetry and my usual general craziness are definitely on their way. Managed to get some creative energy going – weirdly difficult nowadays – especially since
I got this lovely picture and quote from my brilliant cartoonist and illustrator friend Joseph Salina a few years ago, and I’ve kept it on my desktop ever since. Doris Lessing has been one of my greatest heroes since I was a
Hello my friends – here’s a podcast which brings together our shared strange experience of pausing normalcy, and several themes I’ve talked about before, and makes something of them. You don’t have to have listened to anything else I’ve posted for it
Hi folks! Time for another hard truth and a big hug. Today: “You can’t guilt a fascist.” But so what – what harm is there in any catharsis – ultimately paradoxical or not? The harm is that it throws off our aim,
Hello my friends – here’s the latest episode of “Hard Truth and a Big Hug”. It’s a small part of a book that I haven’t yet got around to publishing – but I thought the big ideas and the final take-away were
Our friends already know that my extraordinary wife Catherine and I have been facing down a frightening health challenge lately. She was hospitalized a few months ago, and again more recently, for comparatively minor complications to a previously undiagnosed and life threatening
Hey friends, here’s another brand new all original edition of Hard Truth and a Big Hug – by far the most topical episode I have yet attempted – pandemic edition, no less – though my points are still, as usual, braced very
Hello friends – here’s a brand new episode of – Hard Truth and a Big Hug – today I’m talking about what we care most about, what we pay attention to – and what gets ignored and begins to wither away, when
Hello, my friends – time for another episode of Hard Truth and a Big Hug – this time I want to talk about some forgotten history, which might add some new perspective to struggles too often seen and felt only in the
I decided to take this week off from podcasting (back next week, fear not) so that I could put together a silly little video for my true love (and wife) Catherine. The video is for a song I wrote for her and
Here’s a much shorter podcast – again from a vintage essay which has held up rather well over the years. Our own special in-house blend of funny, true and practical ideas. Hope you enjoy it. It is popular for us to think
With/as flowers (top photo) Hello, my friends – Podcast time once again. There is a lot of talk about moral ideas these days – but we don’t often discuss the nature of the human creatures that think and feel these things. Surface-level
When the misses picks your safety gear (top photo) My incredible wife has been through the wringer lately – after years of stoically facing down chronic health problems, she had a frightening acute crisis a few months ago – and things for
Hi Folks – firstly, I’d like to wish everyone a funky solstice. Seems like a perfect time for a solstice book sale (special pricing for the chill months of Winter). If you’re curious about the books, and what sort of themes I
Hello folks, time for me to do another stand-up. I was planning to do some funny (and perhaps in places even inspiring) readings about teaching, but those plans were pre-empted by events. So instead, I have a heavy one for you today
Here’s something that I’ve been intending for awhile – a reading of “Magic Days” which is the introduction to my book, “Structural Happiness.” It tells the story of the night I wrote my first love song for Catherine, and I even managed