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12 days ago
HAWAII 4-0 Our best friends got married in Hawaii on the rim of Haleakala at sunrise, and being as Miki and I were not only the witnesses, best man and bridesmaid, but also the entire wedding party, we rejoin them every five years to celebrate the event. This year they will have survived twenty years of marital bliss, so the four of us have again embarked on yet another island adventure, this time on the Kona coast of the Big Island. For those of you who have never been there, the reason they call it the “Big Island” is that if you put all the other Hawaiian islands side by side, they still wouldn’t occupy half the land mass of Hawaii. This means that driving from one place to another takes many hours, and if you plan on returning to where you started from, count on spending most of the day in the car. Still, I loved Kona with its sunny days, coffee plantations growing on volcanic hillsides, and sparkling sand beaches lapped by incredibly warm waves. Thanks to ...
50 days ago
There is no question that Southern California is a car culture. Visitors who come here for the first time are often amazed (and frustrated) that it’s almost impossible to get around the city without access to an automobile. Until I moved here, I managed to survive quite nicely without owning a motor vehicle. My favorite poet has escaped from the auto-centered life style to Paris, a city that provides excellent means of mass transit, and where he now resides without that California icon, the car. However, before departing from here, he penned the following poem, capturing the flavor of that favorite youthful pastime, going out for a spin. riding a little red hatchback gleams like a scarab in the desert burning through the Alemeda corridor down the freeway-wide surface streets with Gothic-steel factories pluming white into the white afternoon sky, white that the falling sun will soon ignite into stained glass yellows and oranges. ...
59 days ago
Summer has officially ended, though you would never know that by looking at the triple digit temperatures outside. Perhaps once the weather gets cooler, I'll be more motivated to post here more frequently, or will at least be less distracted by the opportunities of a beautiful day. Due to a rapidly diminishing number of requests, here is a poem I feel is appropritae for the passing of another season. Be well, and enjoy the weekend. The Summer Day (with gratitude to Holy) Who made the world? Who made the swan, and the black bear? Who made the grasshopper? This grasshopper, I mean- the one who has flung herself out of the grass, the one who is eating sugar out of my hand, who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down- who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes. Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face. Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away. I don't know exactly what a prayer is. I do know how to pay attention, ...
94 days ago
My favorite poet and his wife are back in Paris, so I once again have enough time to get back to what has become a rather neglected blog here at Medico Musings. I tried to check in on several of you during this hiatus, but have not had enough time to leave any meaningful comments. My apologies! I doubt most of you get off on typography, but it's an arcane topic that has a curious draw for me. Not long ago, PBS ran a special on this topic, and more recently, the following news item caught my attention. (I'll allow you to form your own opinion on how this reflects on my personality or character.) Extra-Slanty Italics Introduced for Extremely Important Words NEW HOPE, MN—In an attempt to address writers’ ever-growing word-emphasis needs, Minnesota-based Pica Foundry has developed a new, extra-slanty italic font, design director Jordan Soderblum announced Monday. “When writing important words, authors too often bypass regular italics in favor of all capital ...
130 days ago
There are a lot of serious issues facing the world these days, and I'm sure all of you could rattle off a dozen without even trying. All the more reason to take a break for a moment, and (courtesy of my friend Layne) reflect on something less profound, but nonetheless serious for anyone asked to contamplate... Giving Up Chocolate I was walking down the street when I was accosted by a particularly dirty and shabby-looking homeless woman who asked me for a couple of dollars for dinner. I took out my wallet, got out ten dollars and asked, 'If I give you this money, will you buy chocolate with it instead of dinner?' 'No, I had to stop eating chocolate years ago', the homeless woman told me. 'Will you use it to go shopping instead of buying food?' I asked. 'No, I don't waste time shopping,' the homeless woman said. 'I need to spend all my time trying to stay alive.' 'Will you spend this on a beauty salon instead of food?' I asked. 'Are you NUTS!' replied the homeless ...
