Joel Spolsky points to a paper on writing, written by a Harvard philosophy prof for his students. First, texts on good writing depress me, because I usually treat them as a hypochondriac would guidelines on …

The Sunnyvale Hindu temple -- one of the temples where my family regularly worships and socializes -- renovates and renovates and renovates. But the altar is always there, the children always run around and play, …

In & Out: This 1997 Kevin Kline comedy focuses on an Indianan high school teacher whose former student says he's gay when he's not. Amusing and farcical. I first watched this flick with Angel, years …

Why must Bad Subjects texts be such wankery? Why is "I was ready for punk rock." the first simple declarative sentence in this analysis-cum-memoir of The Prisoner?

I wanted to go see Barbara Ehrenreich speak from noon to one. But she was speaking at North Gate, which is a rather distant walk from Dwinelle, where my 11-12 Russian class meets, and I'd …

Lunch with Brandon."So, I have it from reliable sources that, in case of catastrophe, war, plague, famine, whatever, we only need a thousand people to survive. A thousand people, and the human race can go …

My two main TV-watching experiences this weekend belonged to "Touched by an Angel" and the TV-edited version of In & Out. Touched by an Angel. This CBS prime-time drama/anthology (Saturday nights) has s very heavily …

Even before I knew consciously how absurd most marketing tactics and political rhetoric sound to a conscious ear, The Tick made me laugh very, very hard. Today's IMDB quote:Tick: Everybody was a baby once, Arthur. …

It would seem that John Searle got picketed at one of his public appearances. We in the OCF made great fun of this. "People who protest John Searle are just making him feel more important …

Alexei and I discussed a while back the myth-motif of The Woman Who Has A Secret And You Can't Ask Her About It Ever. Examples abound. Usually the man falls in love with the woman, …