Ah Sweet Mystery!

I recently did some research on the concept of déjà vu – not for the first time, I feel almost certain – and I learned that this feeling that we are experiencing something that happened to us before arises from a sort of “glitch” in our brain between the part that detects familiarity and the part that assesses novelty. Even when we find ourselves immersed in the feel...

Happy June, everyone! Happy harbinger of summer! Happy Pride Month! It’s time to trade slacks for shorts (please ignore my pasty legs) and fire up those grills (unless the CC&R’s of your condo association forbid barbecuing). Grab your towel, trunks and bottle of lotion with SPF500 and head to the beach – unless you live in the San Francisco Bay Area, where you’ll freeze y...

If you are a true “Ah Sweet Mysterian” (yes, we’ve got our own cult name!), then you know that Rear Window is my favorite Alfred Hitchcock movie and maybe my favorite film of all time. I’ve mentioned it a lot and written about it extensively

We’re nearly halfway through our celebration into the Girls! Girls! Girls! of Perry Mason. The truth is that I selected a dozen novels that, title-wise, fit the thematic bill, but the titular ladies abound in the 82-novel canon that comprises Mason’s career. The feminine gender even seeps into the four novelettes that Erle Stanley Gardner wrote, and as a bonus we present to y...

What is the most existential birthday present you’ve ever received?

I hope that question doesn’t seem too foreboding! It’s not my aim to inspire dread in any of my readers who are about to celebrate their own Big Day. I simply wanted to tell you all about the most existential birthday present I ever got. It happened on my most recent birt...