Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

​I no longer make New Year’s resolutions — which only 8% of people keep anyway — but this time around I’m making an exception. And I’m serious. No matter how desperate I am for something new to watch, I will not stream the movie Songbird . Haven’t heard of it? Here’s the premise: It’s the…

In a non-pandemic year (remember those?), I often skip New Year’s Eve. By the time I’ve partied my way through Halloween, Thanksgiving, Winter Solstice, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and our wedding anniversary (December 27th, 34 years ago), I’m usually longing for a night in with my feet up. But not this year. I am staying…

​When Ernest Hemmingway was writing A Farewell to Arms , he asked F. Scott Fitzgerald to critique the manuscript. Fitzgerald’s thoughtful, nuanced analysis ran for ten pages and suggested changing the ending. Hemingway’s reply? A succinct, “Kiss my ass.” This story appeared in my horoscope this week, followed by, “I suggest a different approach for…

Navigating the holidays requires every bit of wit, grit, and gumption we’ve got. Take shopping, for instance. Fun at first, it quickly degenerates into a morass of doubts: “Is this enough? Too much? Did I give this to them last year? Did they give one just like it to me?” When David Niven was an…

​“Who is that glamorous couple?” I asked Bill the Printer one long ago snowy day in Ohio. He’d just run off a stack of holiday cards featuring a gorgeously lit photo of a handsome couple in evening dress. “Are they actors? Millionaire philanthropists?” Bill laughed. “That’s what they want you to think. They’re Joan and…

​Many of my Spanish friends are firmly convinced of two things: 1) Thanksgiving is the most significant holiday in the US calendar, and 2) all American women spend their leisure hours sewing quilts. In vain have I protested that I’ve never quilted in my life. Equally impossible is convincing them that the prevalence of Thanksgiving…

I come from a family of light sleepers, and my ability to snooze for eight solid hours — a slippery goal at best — has not improved during the jittery pandemic months. Has anyone’s? Sleep experts talk of “a second pandemic of insomnia” and “coronasomnia.” But I’m resting a bit easier now that I’ve learned…

​Merriment Turns to Mayhem When Halloween Prank Goes Wrong! Every year we see headlines about practical jokes taken too far. Like the October 31st my friend returned from college to find the family home empty, furniture overturned, the kitchen splashed with what looked like blood. She freaked, fled, and called the cops, who tracked down…

​One long ago night, Rich burst through our front door shouting, “We have to get rid of the living room!” “Okay,” I said. “Should I get the sledgehammer?” “No, I mean reconfigure the space. I just heard a talk by Mike Vance, one of the creative geniuses who designed Disneyland. He says living rooms are…

​ ​Have you noticed anything weird lately? I mean besides the global pandemic and collapse of civilization as we know it? Apparently an increasing number of Americans are finding quarantine less isolating than expected, thanks to spectral roommates from the Great Beyond. Patrick Swayze may be dead, but he’s still fun to have around in…