Memory Metal

A nearly occluded carotid artery slowly squeezes off the flow of blood to a woman's brain. Her brain's supply of oxygen and glucose drops dangerously and she slips closer toward a deadly encounter with a stroke.

Remembering the Future

Remembering calls up our internal record of something now existing only in the past. A memory echoes reality, reverberating forward within our minds.

The Gift of Pain

Human language struggles to express the experience of pain, but falters and fails. We cannot help but make circular reference as we attempt to describe it– "it burns like fire," "it pierces like an ice-pick," or "it pounds relentlessly." When it catches us off-guard we blurt out "Ow!" or "Ouch!," and when it takes us beyond all endurance we groan and cry out with inhuman screams.

A Peculiar Name

The word "peculiar" holds me in its fascination. In common usage we connote "peculiar" as "odd" or "weird." I like those terms as well. And the word– peculiar– even sounds odd. Say it aloud, ten times repetitively, and a strange feeling coats your tongue and palate.

The Fatal Fall

I grew up in a household of mostly boys. Constantly looking for ways to entertain ourselves, we three brothers invented countless curious psychological games. The way the brain works, and how it connects with the real, objective world constituted for us an endless source of fascination.

This Is Not a Rose

Thinkers and artists of much greater light than I have commented for centuries on the significance of the name. Shakespeare puts the deep question– "...what's in a name?"– in the mouth of his heroine Juliet. While I won't add my own tuppence here concerning this dialogue, the readers of these articles deserve some insight into the shift in my title for this collection.

In the Belly of Sheol

Death and taxes—the inevitability of these two provoke the cliche. And while the forcible extraction of citizens' finances generates endless debate, the ending of life enjoys no such conversational popularity.