If you ask artificially intelligent ChatGPT to answer questions with a single word, it will. Just add “answer in one word” to each question. Do it and you remove the chatbot’s gift of gab. …

When the writing isn’t finished Nine days before my wife died, she forwarded a Brevity Blog post, “The Death of a Writer,” which asked: “Who is going to deal with your literary legacy, and what do you want done?” My wife wrote, “… interesting re what to do…” She added…

Note: I’ve been finishing Circle Way, a book by my wife, Mary Ann Hogan, who died last year from lymphoma. Here’s her John Lennon story: As a feature writer, Mary Ann’s stories were what we called “an easy read.” Live, they seemed to say. …

Over the hill in Muir Woods, a cathedral: as saplings, they saw Coastal Miwok come — lightly, caring for the spirits and felt the Roman Empire go — not lightly redwoods live 2,000 years, holding hands underground, roots knitting tree to tree, trunk to earth — a primal embrace redwoods meditate grow feel pain and survive they are our quiet friends on Election Day

My trust in the old news you may find quite trite now, but I did love it, just like I love you right now then some jackass shredded the stories, stomped them to sharable lies, and our minds just are not right, now and then you claim the kind one…

i am the Monterey Cyprus — is this all you’ve got!? crags and cliffs and banshee winds to banish hope — nope. quakes and droughts to parch and rip my roots — shoot yet here I stand axes, poisons, salt and fog, toxic rain and wildfire — even lovers carve my skin. and still I stand my spirit guides me my children smile all around me … just sheltering in place … and here we are we are the Monterey Cypresses

Happy Halloween, word people. I wrote a song in 1993 to teach our young sons the parts of speech. A third-grade class in Oakland once recorded it. To the tune of Do-Re-Mi. Give it a try. Better than candy in the long run. The Verb Song Verb, the word that makes it go; Noun, a person place or thing; Adverb, so we can go quickly; Pronoun, so all of us can sing; Adjectives give you shiny hair; Conjunctions make connections, but