"Qui plume a, guerre a." — Voltaire
Today would have been my sister Gloria’s 59th birthday. She missed it by a little over a month. Gloria died of cancer after five years of humor, grace, courage, determination, and about a million other things that I will never know. She wanted to see her two fine sons graduate and make lives of their […]
Many, many thanks to Rock Toews, the owner of Back Creek Books, who, when he acquired it, immediately e-mailed me to let me know that he had something that he thought I would like. It is in beautiful shape inside and out, leading me to think that it had probably been professionally cleaned not long […]
Not long ago, I began toying with an idea for an essay that would explore the implications of “corporate rights” as granted by federal law, but from the perspective of a thought exercise: think of the corporation as an individual, a flesh-and-blood citizen. In the law, take out the word “corporation” and replace it with […]
Well done, Maryland.
I’ve just published a short illustrated essay here on SV called “A Matter of Perspective” about how a college class in technical illustration literally changed the way the world looked to me. It’s also a paean to analog drafting tools, amid which I grew up: “I unscrewed the top of the bottle and took a […]
One of the reasons I fell in love with Mrs. Sotto Voce, and fall in love with her again all the time, is because of the way she always finds fresh joy in geeking out. Yesterday, for example, we celebrated the Fourth of July by treating ourselves to a leisurely morning and afternoon — brunch […]
When you’re dealing with a bunch of seemingly intractable problems, the trick is to figure out where they belong: Focus on the stuff in the lower right quadrant and forget about the rest. The quarter drawing is so called not because of the way the drawing is divided, but because you can trace the circle […]
So this morning I ran across yet another “Is Blogging Dead?” post (on a blog, ironically). I think we’re up to, what, two a month on average now? A consensus seems to be forming around the idea that blogging is plunging headlong into obsolescence due to the popularity of shorter, faster social media. Blogging, in […]
Something I whipped up this morning for my Facebook avatar. Click on the graphic for full-size version. Free for distribution with no restrictions.