Essays by Larry Barnett
Benjamin Braddock, the part played by Dustin Hoffman in director Mike Nichol’s acclaimed film “The Graduate,” is taken aside by a dinner guest at the graduation party thrown for him by his parents and quietly told the secret to his future success. “Plastics,” the guest sagely offers the non-plussed… Read the rest
Surveillance in the digital age is a universal reality at unprecedented scale, reaching into the intimate details of uncountable millions of individual lives. Now politely called “data-mining” to lessen it’s sense of violation, we used to call such activity espionage or spying and its “Peeping … Read the rest
It’s notable that so much of that which make us uniquely human remains hidden until we die. Metaphysical strands and threads invisibly connect us to each other, things and events in which we had a part, stretching through time and space often unacknowledged and unseen.
There are the strands of possession,… Read the rest
For most of human existence a nomadic way of life was life itself. Moving with the seasons alongside migrating animals while establishing temporary lodging lasted hundreds of thousands of years. The simple non-industrial hunter-gatherer style of life produced no garbage; everything used was natural… Read the rest
I like getting the newspaper every day. I like the ritual of looking for it in the darkend driveway, and plopping it down on the kitchen table. I read the the “funnies” last, holding off what for me is the most revealing part of the daily paper. That sense of anticipation doesn’t last long, though; I read … Read the rest
Human existence can be organized within two orders of experience. A first order experience is felt: unmediated sensory awareness responding moment to moment to the space around us. A second order experience includes image and thought, which arise due to the first order experience, and impels communication… Read the rest
I grew up with All-American images of clean-cut baseball heroes — Mickey Mantle, Whitey Ford and the like. Despite later revelations of alcohol problems, their images as wholesome, talented sportsmen resonated across the 1950s and contributed to the backdrop of conformist cultural… Read the rest
The human power of abstraction, our ability to imagine something and then build upon that imaginary idea distinguishes us from lower animals. Brain physiologists might say such abilities reside within our frontal lobes, that area of the brain held responsible for higher thought, but whatever the… Read the rest
Those opposed to the Hotel Limitation Measure – Measure B, are lavishing their criticism on the prospect of unintended consequences. In acts of pure speculation, they proffer a list of the unintended consequences, displaying an uncanny ability to forecast the future as they see it. Miraculously,… Read the rest
I recently refilled a prescription for a beta-blocker I’ve been taking daily for twenty-some odd years. The electrical system of my heart becomes unstable every once in a while, and Atenolol settles it down to a nice normal rhythm.
Atenolol was first produced by pharmaceutical maker AstraZeneca under… Read the rest
No, this is not the first line of a Henny Youngman joke (if you don’t know who he was, Google him, the King of the one-liners), it’s an honest question. You see my wife is descended on both sides of her family from Puritans, one of whom came on the Mayflower. She’s traveled even farther back in time, and viewed… Read the rest
A pervasive belief within Sonoma’s tourist serving businesses is that we must constantly compete for the attention of tourists. The recently formed Tourism Improvement District (TID) is spending $450,000/yr. on advertising of all sorts to “brand” Sonoma; placards on BART trains, billboards, … Read the rest
A cosmic self-referential paradox, our reckoning of time can be used to prove that it’s an illusion. Is this testament to our enduring capacity for self delusion or an example of humanity’s uncanny knack for cracking the underlying code of existence, or both?
What allows all this mental reckoning… Read the rest
We speak about Sonoma’s “sense of place” as if such an idea is obvious, that character and the meaning of “small town” are self-evident. The idea of “Sonoma,” if it occurs to one at all, necessarily resides in the imagination as an abstract totality, while simultaneously existing to the senses… Read the rest
When the economy collapsed in 2008 it was widely blamed on poor home loan lending practices. People who should have never received loans to purchase a house due to their inability to repay those loans once the introductory low-interest rate period ended were granted loans anyway.
It is true that in the… Read the rest
One of the great things about baseball is the umpire. No ump and baseball would be a never-ending series of arguments and fist fights. As it is, the umpire is God, and his word and rule is absolute. To defy the ump is to risk being banned from the field. Even an eyebrow raised in his general direction is a challenge.… Read the rest
The season is changing. You’d think after 65 years, I’d be used to it, but I’m not. I was born in September, so perhaps that’s sharpened my attention. Whatever the cause, I can feel it.
My wife and I recently spent a week by the ocean. Surrounded by the sound of surf I watched the tides and wondered why I couldn’t… Read the rest
What would we do without statistics? Newspapers would actually have to report on events, sociologists would talk about feelings and baseball commentators would have almost nothing to say. Such is the state of the world.
Statistics are particularly appropriate to our digital age where every keystroke,… Read the rest
In his children’s story “The Lorax,” Dr. Seuss presents a parable about greed depleting the richness of nature and the enduring power of human longing. In his tale, beautiful Truffula trees cover the land and display a soft and colorful foliage which is exploited to extinction by a thoughtless industrial… Read the rest
By all accounts, particularly his own, poet Charles Bukowski was a miserable wretch. I attended one of his readings in my youth, and from the mini-fridge next to his stool on stage, he extracted beer after beer; as the evening progressed he ended up falling-down drunk and unable to continue.
But Bukowski… Read the rest