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
For any of my younger friends who have never seen the original 1962 classic film “the Manchurian Candidate” it remains near perfect as cinema, powerful as story, and full of useful clues about our enduring geo-political madness, even though it was always
Over the last few months, I have had messages from a few intelligent and principled friends who are much busier than I am (and thus, blameless for not having the time to research and dig, with which I am so generously supplied
James Baldwin once said “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” In that exact spirit (seeking positive change by facing realities and piercing illusions) I am going to be extremely rude again
Hello friends! Finally finished up my latest screwy song – once again the product of trying to learn a few new features of my recording software, and then getting carried away big-time. As I mentioned recently, for the last few years I
I do everything the weird (dumb, inefficient etc) way. I don’t say this as a macho declaration of individuality, but just because I was wired up strange and I know it. I didn’t do grade school, or high school, or university, nor
Of Two Minds (top photo) Hello dear friends (and skeptics and critics also). This is another one of those big unwelcome but also important ideas, which gave me a very hard time. My aim is to show a clear and objective basis
Large Ess Small Press – Toronto
Hi, I’m Paul Snyders. Welcome to Large Ess Small Press. I have worked as a technician, educator, writer and art model, and now I write about friendship, love, work, art, heart and striving – and the sort of crazy pratfalls and misadventures
I am a strange pacifist – a throwback, really. The characters most like me in thinking, are now mostly in their eighties. It has always seemed obvious to me that to effectively oppose war, you have to study and understand it. This
Maybe it’s the coffee you’re drinking (top photo) Just a little less than five years ago now, I wrote that we would soon face a moment when one could be formally charged with committing a hate-crime, for objecting to a war crime.
Hi folks! Something a little bit different today (for a change – ha!) I have been drawing, making music and writing ever since I was a kid. There are years of my life when I did a lot more of one than
It has never been quite so hard to be understood. As an obsessive weirdo who has been deliberately trying to understand and reach more and more kinds of people for decades (which also means endlessly confronting my own foolishness and vanities) I
Bourgeois Gentleman-Pigeon (top photo) Hi folks, this is another one of those insights which is wonky, largely unwelcome, but very important all the same – which is to say – I’m sorry and you’re welcome in advance! Before I go any further
The image of a naked fat guy running through the streets of ancient (250? BC) Syracuse (Greece) may well stand forever as the punchline to the greatest science lesson in history. Part of it absolutely is the memorable silliness, but even more
I know a lot of other people who are sure that we will need much more than our present focus on indignation, to get through this angry and chaotic period of history, so I want to review a few things which are
Hi folks – here’s another big piece of anti tribalism and once again, I had to throw out a dozen versions before I found the angle needed. Here’s what makes this one especially tricky, the basic idea is so surprising that it
I really did not like Lindsay, nor was he in any way impressed with me – both for fair reason. He was an older man, the very model of restraint discipline and propriety – straight as straight could be. I was a
Human knowledge is all about making distinctions. In a funny way, we can look at most of our intellectual efforts (and by we I mean all humans through history) as a splitting of one bunch into two, after which each of those
I liked this one both for the stillness and peace in the composition – and also for the way that all the fast growing buds everywhere prove with certainty that it won’t look that peaceful for long. In fact, a wild colourful
I have had a lot of strange jobs. I’ve written about some of the important true things I learned working as a technician, which are still widely ignored (and in some quarters outright despised – like thermodynamics). I’ve also mentioned some curious
For a few decades now, many in the west have asserted that our feelings are of incredible importance. As an especially weird example, we have tried to teach self-esteem in the abstract, without also imparting competence and confidence – or delivering the