Advice for Medium writers Dizzy Dean was an Arkansas farmboy who made headlines during the Depression, as a pitcher for the St. Louis Cardinals. Retired after he threw out his arm, Dean became a radio announcer. While his language was colorful, his use of idiomatic expressions (e. g. ain’t “…there’s…

“… Beaten, hammered, laughing blue steel … hear ’em laugh.” Carl Sandburg left: William Butcher (English) …middle: Buck Brothers (American)… right: Hawes Patent Square (American), all ca. 1830–1850 Swords … and plow-shares (or chisels or axes or any number of implements whose function depends on taking and holding an edge…

I hope that I’m safe in thinking that most people (as in the vast majority of humanity) would hesitate before inflicting violence on another living creature. Ultimately, violence is most powerful as the tactic held in reserve. Visualize Putin’s army on Ukraine’s border. Oh, yeah, it is on Ukraine’s border. …

Some essays are of such brilliance that they should be required reading for anyone presuming to take on the mantle of adulthood. The Bollingen edition of the I Ching (with that distinctive yellow cloth cover) has such an introduction, written by Carl Gustav Jung. On Synchronicity has a bookend, Marriage…

When are we going to learn, cheaper isn’t better. It’s just cheaper. I have lived in and worked on the same old house for thirty years now… it’s a few years older than me, built when having a roof over your head mattered more than the concept of thermal envelope…

On Sunday afternoons, after all the household chores have been put aside, I give myself some time at the workbench with the Japanese planes. A piece of steel stuck into a block of wood, a Japanese plane is deceptively simple, and awesomely sophisticated. To the uninitiated (anyone who doesn’t know…

I seem to have been a stranger in a strange land all my life. Pretty sure I was put here by accident, or some sort of cosmic mischief. Maybe I’m just an anachronism, and I belong in another century. I have tried to make the best of it, through high…

If you were around in the 70’s, there’s a good chance you read Small is Beautiful by E. F. Schumacher. It was largely about economies of scale and appropriate technology. Some of us saw it as a blueprint for survival into the 21st century. “Right Livelihood — “Everybody would be…

the first rule is there are no rules. T H White The Once and Future King. if you're gonna read fantasy...