Planar Illusions

Dec 8, 2021–I’m convinced the shortest distant from poverty to plenty is via manipulation of 2-dimensional space. I’ll start with a simple example–pizza. What goes into a pizza? A fistful of dough. A cup of tomato sauce. A sprinkling of grated cheese. Plus assorted...

The Velvet Fog

Dec 1, 2021–I’ve mentioned before my obsession with 1940s radio entertainment. Every night I fall to sleep listening to Edgar Bergen, Burns & Allen, Jack Benny, and The Big Show (Tallulah Bankhead was waaaaaay ahead of her time). Every program featured a musical...

Unpredictable

Nov 24, 2021–When “official” weather predictions are less accurate than some random rodent’s, why do we keep paying attention to them? It seems to me that the accuracy of weather forecasting has plummeted like a barometer in Portland over the past few years. For those...

Fallacy of Averages

Nov 17, 2021–I’ve stumbled on a phenomenon I call the Fallacy of Averages. Humans like to measure everything by talking about “averages.” The term has become part of our language: -Grade Point Average -Average Daily Requirement -Field Goal Average There’s even a Law...

Joy or distraction?

Nov 10, 2021–Years ago, when I interviewed the late composer and pianist Mark Hierholzer, one of his tenets was that we need to differentiate between art that is authentic, versus entertainment that is derivative. The former brings joy; the latter delivers...