Author Archive: Paul Epps

Little Racketeers

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Few Americans either behind or in front of our cameras give evidence of any recognition or respect for themselves or one another as human beings, or have any desire to be themselves or to let others be themselves. On both ends of the camera you find very few people who are not essentially, instead, just promoters, little racketeers, interested in ‘the angle.’ — James Agee, October 12, 1946 Read more →

One Thing We Agree On

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The West reveals here a hatred of itself, which is strange and can be only considered pathological; the West is laudably trying to open itself, full of understanding, to external values, but it no longer loves itself; in its own history, it now sees only what is deplorable and destructive, while it is no longer able to perceive what is great and pure. — Pope Benedict XIV, “If Europe hates itself” Read more →

At the Dog Park

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A woman calls to her dog, a mutt named Lucky. “Why did you name him Lucky?” I ask. “He got hit by a car and survived,” she says. Hmmm . . . it seems to me if he were really lucky, he wouldn’t have been hit by a car in the first place. What was his name before he got hit by the car? Bullseye? Read more →

Be the Worst

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Pat Metheny was asked in a recent interview what advice he would give to younger musicians: I have one kind of stock response that I use, which I feel is really good. And it’s ‘always be the worst guy in every band you’re in.’ If you’re the best guy there, you need to be in a different band. And I think that works for almost everything that’s out there as well. Read more →

Prolific Authors

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George Murray, a poet and co-editor of the literary blog Bookninja.com, sees the near-annual release of a new Stephen King novel as ‘the literary equivalent of watching a skinny Japanese dude scarf down 100 hot dogs in an eating contest; you are kind of grossed out, but gotta hand it to him.’ Murray harbors a unique theory about what distinguishes a genre writer like King from a so-called serious artist like Joyce Carol Oates. ‘It seems with Oates the hotdog eater is a performance artist commenting on the nature of consumption and American hegemony,’ Murray avers. ‘With King it’s just a guy eating 100 hot dogs, then looking like he’s going to die of nitrate poisoning.’ — CBC.ca, “Automated Storyteller” Read more →

Gatsby 2005

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Fitzgerald had to kill off his own famous striver because, to the author, Gatsby represented a dying American dream based on making it the hard way. But no such grim fate awaits today’s little Gatsbys. When they peer out at the universe, they don’t see a green dock light blinking from an unbridgeable distance where the Establishment folk live. This is the age of the red camera light, where everyone arrives sooner or later, if only for a moment, and nobody ever dies of ambition or shame. — The Wall Street Journal, “Gatsby’s Heirs” Read more →

The Individual Lemming

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John Maynard Keynes said in his masterful The General Theory: ‘Worldly wisdom teaches that it is better for reputation to fail conventionally than to succeed unconventionally.’ (Or, to put it in less elegant terms, lemmings as a class may be derided but never does an individual lemming get criticized.) — Warren Buffett Read more →

Dying at the Right Time

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[James] Dean died before he could fail, before he lost his hair or his boyish figure, before he grew up. — Donald Spoto, Rebel: The Life and Legend of James Dean   One must discontinue being feasted upon when one tasteth best; that is known by those who want to be long loved. — Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra   Many die too late, and some die too early. Yet strange soundeth the precept: ‘Die at the right time!’ — Ibid. Read more →

God’s Gift to Kansas

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The creationists’ fondness for ‘gaps’ in the fossil record is a metaphor for their love of gaps in knowledge generally. Gaps, by default, are filled by God. You don’t know how the nerve impulse works? Good! You don’t understand how memories are laid down in the brain? Excellent! Is photosynthesis a bafflingly complex process? Wonderful! Please don’t go to work on the problem, just give up, and appeal to God. Dear scientist, don’t work on your mysteries. Bring us your mysteries for we can use them. Don’t squander precious ignorance by researching it away. Ignorance is God’s gift to Kansas. — Richard Dawkins, “Creationism: God’s gift to the ignorant” Read more →

Transcendental Meditation

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Slate summarizes an article from the American Journal of Cardiology (emphasis added): Transcendental meditation may prevent death from hypertension. In a study, hypertensive elderly people who used TM were 23 percent to 30 percent less likely to die than those who relied on other relaxation methods or drugs. What is the difference between transcendental meditation and regular meditation? It must be pretty good if it makes people “less likely to die.” Read more →

OC Real Estate Report

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I recently sold a house in Laguna for $3.5 million. It was on about 2,000 square feet of land, maybe a twentieth of an acre, and the house might cost about $500,000 if you wanted to replace it. So the land sold for something like $60 million an acre. — Warren Buffett Read more →

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