Author Archive: Paul Epps

Rhapsody

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I am glad daylong for the gift of song,      For time and change and sorrow; For the sunset wings and the world-end things      Which hang on the edge of to-morrow. I am glad for my heart whose gates apart      Are the entrance-place of wonders, Where dreams come in from the rush and din      Like sheep from the rains and thunders. — William Stanley Braithwaite, “Rhapsody” Read more →

Universities Are Beautiful, California Is Beautiful, UCs Are Beautiful

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“It’s those nights when you hike up to the Big C at 5 am, just to take pictures, that make college worth it.” ? #berkeleypov by @a.sp.m #ucberkeley #campanile #nightlights Edited by UC Berkeley A post shared by UC Berkeley (@ucberkeleyofficial) on Feb 6, 2018 at 5:57pm PST And just like that, it's Friday again @ucsandiego | Photo credit: @alexislzarco? ? ? ? ? .?????????? .?????????? .???? ? ? ? ? #uofcalifornia #uc #ucsd #ucsandiego #sd #socal #southerncalifornia #cali #california #regram #geisel #geisellibrary #sunset #sunsetlover #sunsetlovers #sunsetgram #colors #colorful #triton #tritons #book #books #sky #skyline #purple #pink #lajolla #campus #college #weekend A post shared by University of California (@uofcalifornia) on Feb 9, 2018 at 7:27am PST Read more →

A Bite of Nostalgia

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I drove through Carl’s Jr. today for lunch . . . “Would you like to try a Western Bacon Cheeseburger?” the girl asked. “Yes, that sounds good.” The Western Bacon Cheeseburger was a favorite of mine when it was introduced in the early 1980s. A taste of nostalgia! I was tempted when I got to the window to ask why she’d recommended a Western Bacon Cheeseburger and not some new-fangled menu item as is customary, but I was afraid she’d say they just had a couple lying around and needed to get rid of them . . . Read more →

Some Links on Work-Life Balance

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Carol Bartz discusses the myth of work-life balance (Video) “Bartz Says ‘Work/Life’ Balance is a Myth,” Wall Street Journal, May 1, 2012. Beyond policies: Office culture must change (Article) Susan Dominus, “Rethinking the Work-Life Equation,” New York Times, February 25, 2016. The problem may be long hours not work-family conflict (Article) Robin Ely and Irene Padavic, “Work-Family Conflict is Not the Problem: Overwork Is,” Huffington Post, November 6, 2013. Managing work and life is an increasingly global problem (Report) EY, Global Generations: A Global Study on Work-Life Challenges Across Generations (2015). We know flexibility works, the challenge is execution (Article) Stew Friedman, “‘Having It All’ Is Not a Women’s Issue,” Harvard Business Review, June 26, 2012. The best way forward (Article) Gigi Liu, “From Work-Life Balance to Work-Life Integration– The New Way Forward,” Entrepreneur, March 31, 2016. When and where you work is increasingly the norm for many professionals (Article) Laura Vanderkam, “Work-life Balance is Dead —… Read more →

It Was a Very Definite Thing

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It was a very definite thing within myself, that happened, that I allowed myself be so open, and let my defenses down enough . . . it was almost as if, I’d got to the point . . . of no return . . . and I thought, “I’m going to go for it.” Read more →

All the Hemispheres

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Leave the familiar for a while. Let your senses and bodies stretch out Like a welcomed season Onto the meadows and shores and hills. Open up to the Roof. Make a new water-mark on your excitement And love. Like a blooming night flower, Bestow your vital fragrance of happiness And giving Upon our intimate assembly. Change rooms in your mind for a day. All the hemispheres in existence Lie beside an equator In your heart. Greet Yourself In your thousand other forms As you mount the hidden tide and travel Back home. All the hemispheres in heaven Are sitting around a fire Chatting While stitching themselves together Into the Great Circle inside of You. — Hafez Read more →

19 Insane Tidbits From James Damore’s Lawsuit

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The Federalist recently published 19 insane tidbits about the Google office environment gleaned from the James Damore lawsuit. Keep in mind I’m a programmer, not a lawyer, when I say that Damore has a prima facie case of illegal retaliation: he engaged in protected activity — i.e., exercising the right to improve working conditions — by opposing several discriminatory practices, and was fired from his job. Damore wrote in his famous (or infamous) memo that “Google has created several discriminatory practices.” Classic case of opposition to an unlawful employment practice. The law does not require that the employment practice actually be unlawful, only that the employee believes the practice to be unlawful. Read more →

Funeral: For Us His Gold

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after Gerald Stern The insect was yellow with crumpled-black banded legs         and shellacked back that would outlast us         and wistful eyes from what I could discern on that trail                 between fields, and we laid him out in the open air under a sky fast-blue with                 change, wedging         a leaf beneath his triple-belted belly so he didn’t rest on                 plain dirt,         and we placed two cloverblooms by his head and he was old you said, could tell by how definite the stripes were, how                 complete         the patterns bold and dark, almost engraved, and he was beautiful in that pasture… Read more →

Fernando and Barbara Ann

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I got an email today from a guy named Fernando and I can’t get the song out of my mind . . . Can you hear the drums, Fernando? There was something in the air that night The stars were bright, Fernando. I would not want to have a name that reminds people of a song that they immediately start singing to me my whole life. Like Jude. Or Barbara Ann. Barbara Ann would be a bad name to have . . . Read more →

West Coast Tsunami Warning

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Those of us who live on the west coast, including Alaska and Hawaii, got a tsunami warning yesterday morning, following a 7.9 earthquake in Alaska. My first thought was “This is going to make me look like a genius for not getting my car washed last weekend.” Read more →

Something Terrible Would Happen

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It sounds a little bit strange but the idea that something terrible would happen . . . I feel something here . . . Something over here . . . It’s like a pressure . . . on my heart. It’s pushing, it’s like it’s pushing. And it hurts. Something is pushing there, it hurts. Sadness, there’s a lot of sadness. I don’t want to feel it. Something is pushing there, it hurts, there is sadness, and there is something that doesn’t want to feel it. I don’t want to feel it . . . Read more →

Ghosts

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You must not think that what I have accomplished through you could have been accomplished by any other means. Each of us is to himself indelible. I had to become that which could not be, by time, from human memory, erased. I had to burn my hungry, unappeasable furious spirit so inconsolably into you you would without cease write to bring me rest. Bring us rest. Guilt is fecund. I knew nothing I made myself had enough steel in it to survive. I tried: I made beautiful paintings, beautiful poems. Fluff. Garbage. The inextricability of love and hate? If I had merely made you love me you could not have saved me. — Frank Bidart, “The Ghost”   By Robert Lowell: Read more →

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