Blog: Not My First Rodeo

Blogs in Abeyance, with Associated Bituminosity Definition of Abeyance: A state of temporary inactivity. Merriam-Webster Definition of Bituminosity: You’ll have to wait for this. But not for very long. An Outpouring of Written Words Demonstrates the Human Capacity for Change When the lockdowns began in mid-March 2020, many organizations and...

Living Under Their Influence This anxiety, this mode of melancholy, is the anxiety of influence, the dark and daemonic ground on which we now enter. Harold Bloom, The Anxiety of Influence A checkered past: a past history of having done bad things or been in trouble. Merriam-Webster It is probably...

Claiming our Heritage from Soupy Sales I think everybody, really deep inside, would some time or other like to throw a pie or get hit by a pie. Soupy Sales, Who Had a Lasting Impact (So to Speak) on Me Nothing sends spirits so high As the gooshy embrace of...

Mavericks and Paradox Maverick: An independent individual who does not go along with a group or party. Merriam Webster With Mr. Justice [Oliver Wendell] Holmes, I think that “there is nothing like a paradox to take the scum off your mind.” Michael Kammen, People of Paradox (1972) The Well-Trained Maverick:...

Socialism, Then And Now As I raced along in life, I could have spared myself a lot of time and trouble if I had paused to notice a consistent and conspicuous pattern. Every time I learned a lesson the hard way, it turned out that I had taken the long...

The Constant Conundrum of Figuring Out What We Meant When We Contemplate What Seem to Be Reliable Quotations of What We Said A Verse I Just Wrote, Though I Should Have Written It 25 Years Ago A very few gurus and wizards Can grasp the reality of lizards. From their...

A Reckoning with Brevity and Abundance in the Allocation of Words An Achievement with a Recognizable Shape When I finished my dissertation, I achieved two successes: I earned a Ph.D., and I created a text that—in its shape and proportions—bore an unmistakable resemblance to the Goodyear Blimp. Written fast to...

The Best Imaginable Way to Observe the One-Year Anniversary of the “Not my First Rodeo” There was once a small little frog, And one day he hopped on a log. Then out jumped a bug Who gave him a hug, And together they fell in the bog. There once was...

Pondering Inconsistency Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradicts everything you said to-day. Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Self-Reliance” I used to be contentious and controversial, and then I became congenial and collaborative. Limerick’s Consistently Repeated Summary of...

A Multiple-Choice Question That Is Harder to Answer than You Might Realize at First In the photograph that appears above, what is this woman doing? A.) She is cultivating inner peace through the practice of transcendental meditation. B.) She is preparing to take the Law School Admissions Test (LSAT). C.)...