“‘What is the Culture? What do we believe in, even if it hardly ever is expressed, even if we are embarrassed about talking about it? Surely in freedom, more than anything else. A relativistic, changing sort of freedom, unbounded by laws or laid-down moral codes, but––in the end––just because it is so hard to pin […]
“‘How long do you think this place is going to stay the way it is now? Ten years? Twenty? Can’t you see how much this place has to alter…in just the next century? We’re so used to things staying much the same, to society and technology––at least immediately available technology––hardly changing over our lifetimes that…I […]
“This is our birthplace though, this is what we deserted long ago. This is where we used to live, on balls of dust and rock like this. This is our home town from before we felt the itch of wanderlust, the sticks we inhabited before we ran away from home, the cradle where we were […]
“Watch out for people who call themselves religious; make sure you know what they mean––make sure they know what they mean!” ––A Prayer for Owen Meany, by John Irving, pg. 572 “Life expansion, in terms of biology, is mostly concerned with existence now, not prior to birth or after death’s biological finality. And it […]
“‘I want to go on being a student,’ I told him. ‘I want to be a teacher. I’m just a reader,’ I said. ‘DON’T SOUND SO ASHAMED,’ he said. ‘READING IS A GIFT.’ ‘I learned it from you,’ I told him. ‘IT DOESN’T MATTER WHERE YOU LEARNED IT––IT’S A GIFT. IF YOU CARE ABOUT SOMETHING, […]
“What could Marilyn Monroe’s death ever have to do with me? ‘IT HAS TO DO WITH ALL OF US,’ said Owen Meany, when I called him that night. ‘SHE WAS JUST LIKE OUR WHOLE COUNTRY––NOT QUITE YOUNG ANYMORE, BUT NOT OLD EITHER; A LITTLE BREATHLESS, VERY BEAUTIFUL, MAYBE A LITTLE STUPID, MAYBE A LOT SMARTER […]
As an amateur neuroscience enthusiast, I’m obligated not only to seek out the best and most recent neuroscientific findings, but also to be wary of how these findings might be abused. Any scientific discipline that can be easily monetized and/or misinterpreted by the popular media will spawn its share of hacks, prophets, and snake oil […]
When I decided to move back to Humboldt after returning from Japan in summer 2013, I was motivated by several different factors. One of the most influential was my growing trepidation about the problem of climate change, which birthed in me a desire to settle myself in a strong community and start learning about sustainable […]
“Grandmother was rigorous and unswerving. It was her belief in the value of effort itself that prevented her from buying a television set. She was a passionate reader, and she thought that reading was one of the noblest efforts of all; in contrast, she found writing to be a great waste of time––a childish self-indulgence, […]
This was my favorite novel throughout my adolescence, and is also probably the only book I’ve ever read three times. After a recent and extremely rewarding rereading of The Grapes of Wrath, I decided it was time to take up East of Eden once again. The book holds many memories, like that handful of albums […]