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I was born in Calgary and ever since I’ve been a little kid I’ve been puzzled by the chuckwagon races. I went to my first Stampede about eighty years ago.  A horse fell and some grown-ups shot the horse in the head. The cowboy waved to the crowd. Everyone cheered him. Other grown-ups dragged the … Reckoning

  He was six years old when he made the most loyal friend he would ever have. This was a fortunate thing, because he never learned how to deserve one. At that age, of course, none of it looked serious. Boys are noisy creatures. They push each other, shout, knock things over, and call it … Good Dog

A small act of kindness… and a surprisingly firm refusal I turned 84 the other day. At that age, birthdays are less about cake and more about accounting. Not financial accounting—I’ve done enough of that—but the quieter kind. You start taking stock of the people who, for reasons still not entirely clear, helped you along … Curious Karmas

There is a monument in America that seems to be waiting for something. It does not advertise. It does not explain itself. It simply stands there, patient as a man who knows something the rest of us do not. In northeastern Georgia, on a low, unremarkable hill, five massive slabs of granite rise out of … Zeropop 2

Human beings claim to love answers. That is one of our more charming lies. We say we want clarity. We say we want facts. We say we want everything laid out plainly, like a decent breakfast menu in a respectable diner. But the truth is, what really hooks us is mystery. Give us a clean … Zeropop 3

There were four brothers who were, more or less, geniuses, and they more or less hated each other. The first time they fully understood how important they were to one another was after their father killed himself. The brothers were known as the Loz Brothers. Loz was a strange name, and although each of them … ZeroPop

A small act of kindness… and a surprisingly firm refusal I turned 84 the other day. At that age, birthdays are less about cake and more about accounting. Not financial accounting—I’ve done enough of that—but the quieter kind. You start taking stock of the people who, for reasons still not entirely clear, helped you along … Curious Karmas

Frank Sharpe lives across the alley from us in Edmonton, in a neighborhood populated by professors, doctors, and architects—people who employ long words and are often short of patience. Busy.  Busy. Busy. Frank claims, “I’m just a bricklayer.”  Which is like Pablo Picasso saying, “I dabble.” Frank is my age—maybe a year younger if he’s … the Language of Bricks

For a while there, it felt as if my computer had joined a secret society devoted to my humiliation. One minute I was a reasonably confident citizen of the modern world, the sort of man who can still locate a paragraph he wrote in 1978 and argue about it with authority. The next minute I … A Life in Temporary Memory

There are many ways the world might end. Asteroid. Pandemic. Artificial intelligence deciding it prefers dolphins. But few have considered the most probable cause: Kate misplacing my notes. Somewhere in this house—beneath a teacup, inside a cookbook, or disguised as a grocery list—is a crumpled page containing ideas so essential that, without them, the future … The Backup Plan

  I used to look at the water tower in Coronation and wonder what, exactly, it was waiting for. By daylight it was only a water tower, which is what sensible people called it. It stood there on its stilts like a dutiful public servant, holding water for baths, dishwashing, and the general maintenance of … The Water Tower

  There comes a moment in every man’s life when he realizes he is not at the top of the food chain. For some, it happens on safari. For others, in a boardroom. For me, it happened on a Tuesday morning in Los Angeles when a pigeon refused to move. I don’t mean it hesitated. … Sidewalk Hierarchy

I have ended friendships that took forty years to build in under a minute. Not with a knife. Not with a fist. Not even face to face. With an email. Not just any email, either. A magnificent one. A scorching, beautifully reasoned, morally airtight email written in the white heat of absolute certainty. You know … Before I Hit Send

The chaos was already bad when the phone rang. On St. Margaret’s Bay, loons sang silly songs in the Nova Scotia fog while McDuff, seventy-one and overweight, sat bolt upright in his enormous second-floor suite. Even on his massive Simmons Beauty Rest memory-foam bed, he felt insignificant. Nestled beside him, his third wife, Danielle, thirty-five, … Fog, Lobsters, and Lies

The first memory I have of my father is his bald head. I was bald too, having been on the planet only three weeks. I was not yet strong enough to toss my father into the air and catch him, so he did the honors for both of us. Dad flipped me like a pancake … Gravity Kid

A child is born. Two people claim credit. Both may be right. A hundred years from now, someone will insist they know exactly who I was. They’ll say Jaron Summers was six feet tall, or five-foot-eight, or possibly a defensive end for a mid-level college team in Nebraska. There will be records. There are always … The Third Parent

My wife and I drank champagne on the night of January 16, 1994. Things were rosy. Our condo, ideally located in Bel Air, had appreciated nicely, and we had an eager buyer. We stood to double our investment. Then the Northridge earthquake struck before dawn. When the phone lines finally came back later that day, … Granite, Prozac, and Justice

I guess when you’re young, there are some things you don’t understand. When you grow up, you think about them again. In my case, it was Father Dodo—which just happened to be what everyone called him. I think his real name was Father Van Tellie, but now that doesn’t matter much. Even the Catholics said … Glass Before Walls

Charlie Fast had been a card mechanic at eighteen, back in the day when a spotless cuff and a calm hand could part a fool from his paycheck without anyone feeling insulted. He never rushed a move. He slowed everything down. Freeze-frame slow. No jerks. No flourishes. No misdirection. He wanted you to see exactly … What the Mirror Took

The Subscription That Wouldn’t Die For at least two years, possibly longer, a company I barely remembered was charging my credit card. Not aggressively. Not loudly. Just… faithfully. The company is called 10Web. I’m sure it provides something useful to someone. Perhaps to many someones. But to me it had become one of those modern … Auto-Renew: The Horror Story

At my age, every modern platform begins with the same smiling promise: this will be easy. That is the first lie. Somewhere deep inside Fiverr, where timers tick softly and customer-service language is polished until it can blind a man at twenty paces, there appears to be a system designed to make accidental approval much … Powered by Snapping Honey Badgers

  “Back in my day,” said Leon Purvis, who had done enough time to qualify as a public landmark, “a man could at least trust his poison to be honest.” Darnell, who was twenty-three and still wore the baffled expression of someone who had not expected life to end up as a concrete bunk and … Killer Paper

Oversalted beef bourguignon leds to a French endorsement and a business built on temperature confusion. Lately the world seems to be in a foul mood. Every time you turn on the news, somebody is bombing somebody, two governments are threatening a third government, the economy is making the sort of noises a transmission makes just … Magic Salt Sponge

Kate and I once lived between two families who each had 243 children. One family was Chinese. The other was Russian. We were the neutral zone. Now, before anybody gets the wrong idea, Kate and I love children. We married late, found each other at just the right time, and decided there were already plenty … The Fertile Curtain

A long time ago, when America was still capable of being shocked by an ice cube, a man named Wilson Bryan Key wrote a book called Subliminal Seduction. He argued that advertisers were hiding naughty little messages in magazine ads and liquor layouts—tiny visual smirks tucked below the threshold of awareness. If you stared hard … Subliminal Seduction

A nervous young writer meets Chuck Connors, idol of The Rifleman, and watches a childhood myth collapse into laughter, profanity, and charm—opening a documentary-sized window onto celebrity, memory, and America’s rough-edged old Hollywood masculinity.

A young West Point graduate meets Walt Disney over breakfast and is offered a glimpse into a future inside the Magic Kingdom—until one honest answer ends the opportunity, leaving him decades later reflecting on the cost of perfect timing.

At breakfast, a husband tests a joke on friends—but the payoff reveals something deeper: the timing, patience, and laughter that keep a marriage alive after forty years.

Forty years ago in Calcutta there were establishments promising a great time for ten cents. I did not go. Not because I lacked curiosity. I simply lacked the ten cents. This was during a period of my life when my finances were not so much “tight” as they were “philosophical.” I believed money should circulate … Ten Cents Short

How to Hack Time (Using Science, Energy Drinks, and a Chatbot Named Steve) “You want time itself to slow?” asked Tucker, seventeen, slurping a quadruple energy drink through a bamboo straw.  “I’m creating temporal drag.” “That sounds like something you’d get arrested for,” he said. “No, no. Temporal drag means making time feel slower on … Flat Prune

In jaunty rhyme, Freud’s couch confesses cocaine habits, dream decoding, and humanity’s quarrel between id and superego—suggesting beneath our polished manners lurks a bargaining child with complicated desires.

In a mischievous tour of dopamine, nicotine, and romance, Jaron Summers dissects how humans become habit-forming to one another. Blending neuroscience with Alberta marital timing, he reveals the mechanics of emotional addiction—and argues it’s far nobler to be oxygen than a cigarette.

After hearing Charlie Munger’s advice about avoiding the place you’ll die, a wealthy widower hires experts to calculate his fatal coordinates. In dodging death, he nearly avoids living—until he discovers the safest place to die is wherever he finally finds peace.

In his private journal, an absurdly earnest sex therapist reveals “The Neptune Surge,” a comic strategy for boosting male confidence through strategic breathing. A satire on ego, applause, and marital choreography, it suggests love sometimes begins with well-timed oxygen.

After mishearing his pastor’s advice, a 101-year-old tycoon concludes that eternal life depends on shoe reinforcement. Titanium soles, flattened hills, and cautious concubines follow. Unfortunately, death is unimpressed by traction — and deeply sensitive to vowels.

  I woke to a breeze slipping through our tiny condo a few miles from UCLA and watched my Post-it notes lift off like a coordinated air force. They rose from the desk in disciplined formation — grocery lists, reminders, fragments of dialogue, one ambitious note that simply said “EMPIRE?” — and drifted across the … Rock Solid

When a tremor disrupts a BYU preparedness class, an overcautious accountant and a quick-acting Californian collide. As they navigate rivalry, faith, and attraction, they learn that some foundations shift quietly—and some risks are worth taking.

Jaron Summers has written novels, screenplays, essays, and at least one extremely valuable grocery list. He believes in ownership, rhythm, and reading contracts slowly. More at jaronsummers.com.

  When I was younger, I believed in conquest. Not the sword-and-sandal variety. More the tidy American kind. Conquer the market. Conquer the critics. Conquer obscurity. Conquer cholesterol. Conquer time. Time, especially. If you could just outrun it, outwork it, outwrite it — you could win. Then one day, without so much as a drumroll, … Strategic Surrender

When a modern dentist calls it “old work,” memory opens wide. A craftsman’s sweat, a father’s silence, and a generation that believed in pressure and permanence return. Sometimes what lasts longest isn’t the filling—but the glow it leaves behind. Bridge to the next piece: In the next essay, I look more closely at what my father’s generation packed tightly away—and what happens when the capsules finally open.

In a town obsessed with straight lines, one quiet medical curve humbles millions—approximately 43,000,000.5 of them. A darkly comic fable about pride, aging, carrots with opinions, and the awkward discovery that geometry eventually negotiates with us all.

We measure life in miles, mortgages, and business-class beds — but the only number that really counts is the space between two chairs. Civilization isn’t GDP. It’s passing the soy sauce without standing up.

A floating farce about rich people who believe international waters suspend consequences. One napkin map, one yacht, and a series of polite disasters reveal that responsibility sinks slower than money—and dignity sinks first.

Two lovers. An L.A. dream condo. Fraud, lust, leverage—and fire as the only honest exit.

Misdirection is my confession: I don’t hide thieves; I hide reality, letting confidence sprint headfirst into a fire hydrant, where criminal ambition meets municipal iron, physics, and the sudden moral clarity of pavement—forever laughing.

A darkly funny, heart-warming family tale about survival, scarcity, and inherited wisdom—spanning two world wars to modern kitchens—where love is rationed, humor endures, and one family learns that sometimes the secret to happiness is simply knowing where to point.

Gaudi’s cathedral is a work in progress like our marriage