My Post-Traumatic Chicken Disorder- March 20, 2021

One day this past January, chuffed about having received my first Moderna vaccine the previous morning, and undoubtedly a little woozier than I realized, I had a shocking encounter with a flock of chickens. (Cue Jaws/Land Shark theme music from Saturday Night Live,...

To Our Human Family… With Love and Sorrow

Just this morning it occurred to me that I’ve been so busy following the primaries and anxiously researching the coronavirus that I’ve barely spent a minute reflecting on the nearly 5,000 people worldwide who’ve already succumbed to that disease. Let alone their many...

Chasing Eve! Connected at the Root and Down to the Bone

Welcome to the sprawling streets of Los Angeles, where celebrity sightings are commonplace—at least in some communities on the Westside—and homeless encampments maintain a presence just about everywhere else. We may not be as compact as our tech-haven sister to the...

Birth and Death… and Birth Again

My brother Gene passed into the Great Mystery a few days ago. I feel like I’ve lost a limb. Dr. Eugene Frederick Karson was born on October 23rd, 1935. A brilliant, athletic, consistently curious, and compassionate man, he was my idol, my inspiration, my...

Return of the Butterfly: From Fleur, with Love

Sometimes the best way to read a novel is to write one. Over a decade ago, something like that began happening to me. I’d already been working at the craft of fiction for many years when it occurred to me that it might be interesting to try writing a first...