Bespoke

Philosophy

  • Driving Through East Texas and the Garden of Gilgamesh

    “Why are we here?” Karen asked this nonchalantly, as if she were wondering why roosters have combs on their heads. I was hoping she was talking to herself—or that the question was rhetorical. But since we were driving to Houston,… Continue reading

  • Like a Rock

    My daughter often sang along with television commercials when she was very young. She didn’t always get the words right. When the Chevy Silverado commercial came on, she sang, “Mike the Rock, ” a version I’ve come to prefer with… Continue reading

    Like a Rock

  • Fishing with a Dotted Line

    The young woman helping us was friendly and we struck up a conversation. We tell her about our fly fishing trip and she says, “I love to fly fish!” She tells about her Dad taking her fly fishing just down… Continue reading

  • The Beauty of Creative Destruction

    I have two faces. My nice face smiles on cue and stops at neighborhood lemonade stands, tosses five dollar bills in the tip jar when the barista is not looking and eats blackberry cobbler with ice cream. My ugly face… Continue reading

  • Whenever I See Your Smiling Face

    Jenna and Lauren express Duchenne smiles while framing my nephew David sporting a retro-eighties mouth-only male smile James Taylor did not sing Whenever I see Your Smiling Face about professional athletes…unless of course he was referring to Phil Mickelson or… Continue reading

  • Stealing Back Cool from Kerouac

    I’ve always loved cool…have no idea what it is but I love it. Perhaps I have no idea because cool expresses not one meaning or attitude but many, a cross-pollinated adjective moving fluidly in many cultures and languages. An Anglo… Continue reading

  • There’s a tornado in my coffee

    My son is writing his undergraduate thesis for Honors Meteorology on the topic, The Genesis of Tornadoes. I was wondering if The Revelation of Tornadoes might be easier to write. Tornado prediction is a non-linear dart tossed into the misty… Continue reading

  • 15 minutes of fame and paranoia

    A had a fifteen minute interlude yesterday at the airport that began in relational euphoria and ended in paranoia. Moments occur daily that signal my grasp of human relations, the mastery I have in moments of stress, the ability to… Continue reading