Category Archives: index

Banana Logic

| May 25, 2026
Kate and I recently decided to simplify our lives. This is how elderly people announce the beginning of a disaster. “We have too much stuff,” I said. Kate looked around the room. This took several minutes because portions of the room have not been visible since the first Obama administration. “We do have a lot,” […]

The Crossing

| May 25, 2026
In the summer of 1964, at the age of twenty-two, I boarded the RMS Queen Mary in Southampton, England, bound for New York. I was returning home after spending two years in New Zealand as a Mormon missionary. In those days, the LDS Church paid for a missionary’s transportation to the mission field and back […]

The Worthy Sinner

| May 24, 2026
Chapter One — The Interview There are many ways for a young man to discover that the world is not arranged according to his expectations. Some learn it through war, some through marriage, and some—though it seems hardly fair—through a private interview with a man who speaks directly to God. Jerry Wonder was nineteen years […]

INDENTURED

| May 24, 2026
Georgia, 1871 The wagon arrived at dusk smelling of wet wool, despair, and British opinion. Inside sat the Whitcombe family of Sussex, England, each wearing the expression of people who had crossed an ocean expecting opportunity and instead found Georgia. Edgar Whitcombe sat bolt upright in a frayed traveling coat, a man born with the […]

Elderly Upgrade

| May 23, 2026
Scientists have spent decades attempting to improve the lives of the elderly.1 Most of these efforts involve safer bathtubs, softer cereal, and pamphlets containing words large enough to be read from neighboring counties. Dr. Milton Vane had bigger ideas. Dr. Vane loved his parents. Unfortunately, they kept falling down. His father once fractured a wrist […]

Oral Accounting

| May 22, 2026
For legal reasons, let us call it Universal Continental Global Mega Pictures Amalgamated. Or UCGMPA. Pronounced, I believe, by dropping a filing cabinet down an elevator shaft. The check was for a modest amount. So modest, in fact, that when I opened the envelope, my wallet looked at it and said, “Let’s not make this […]

Hydrova

| May 22, 2026
There are now so many billionaires attempting to “disrupt” civilization that I fully expect one of them to announce a replacement for oxygen sometime before Christmas. Probably in a black turtleneck. Possibly standing beside a hologram. Certainly charging a monthly subscription fee. The basic version will allow breathing. The premium version will include sighing. Which […]

Improper Innovation.

| May 21, 2026
In the town of Pine Hollow, decent people did not discuss sex. They discussed weather. They discussed potatoes. They discussed whether Pastor Blevins’ sideburns suggested vanity. But sex itself remained hidden beneath layers of silence so dense that several local teenagers reached adulthood believing pregnancy could occur during square dancing if the fiddle player became […]

Bread and Broadband

| May 20, 2026
Americans have become increasingly fond of comparing the United States to ancient Rome. Usually this happens shortly after someone cuts them off in traffic, Congress passes another 4,000-page bill no one has read, or a billionaire launches himself into orbit wearing sunglasses shaped like democracy’s final warning. Personally, I blame cable television. And history. Mostly […]

Jill

| May 19, 2026
The evening started dull, as most evenings did. You could watch a feature film in the Avalon, on Main Street in Coronation’s only movie theater. The Alberta tiny town featured nine hundred plus souls. You could wander over to Chong’s Café for a cold Coke and a warm piece of pie. You could shoot eight […]

I Am So Ashamed

| May 18, 2026
My dear nephew Mandrake, Tomorrow you enter marriage. This is a wonderful institution built upon love, trust, companionship, compromise, and occasionally pretending you do not remember who scratched the Volvo. As a man who has been best man thirteen times, I feel obligated to pass along certain truths. First, women often say exactly what they […]

Canyon Toast

| May 18, 2026
I found my nephew Mandrake standing beneath a large sign in Bel Air that read: NO SMOKING DURING FIRE SEASON. $1000 FINE. Unfortunately, Mandrake was holding matches. Not one match. A whole box. He also appeared to be attempting science. “Mandrake,” I said carefully, “what exactly are you doing?” “I was seeing if dry leaves […]

Hex Appeal

| May 17, 2026
My wife and I are both close to eighty, and we’ve lived in the same condo in West LA for almost forty years. Once upon a time we were the youngest couple in the building. Now we are unquestionably the oldest. Young families move in and look at us the way archaeologists study pottery fragments. […]

Dog Dominion

| May 16, 2026
For several centuries, a highly advanced civilization in a distant part of the galaxy had been watching Earth. Not carefully, you understand. More the way you watch a television in an airport bar when the sound is off and your flight has been delayed. Their instruments could detect movement, buildings, vehicles, fires, wars, breakfast cereal, […]

Proper Groveling

| May 15, 2026
  Dear Uncle Jaron, I have been invited to visit some wealthy friends. I really like them and when I am around them, they buy me gifts. How do I act in their home so they’ll ask me back? Any suggestions you might have would be greatly appreciated. Their servants kind of intimidate me. Your […]

Budget Bandit

| May 15, 2026
Happy holidays from 1997.  Time flies and and if you’re like many people, you might be flying this December. As my Christmas gift to you, here are a few handy travel tips. They’re perfect for the holiday season or any other time. Suppose you’re going to New York. Since there are no direct flights from Edmonton, […]

Silicon and Silicone

| May 15, 2026
I just got back from Comdex in Las Vegas. The year is 1997 About a half zillion people attended Comdex, the largest computer/electronics show in the world. Did I see anything new? Nope. Just old things in different sizes. For example, huge flat-screen TV sets. Some would easily cover your living room wall, making Pavarotti’s […]

Jingles Wins the Pot

| May 14, 2026
Every winter the yachts arrived at St. Barts like migrating steel whales with tax attorneys. The harbor filled with floating palaces owned by men who had reached that strange level of wealth where normal hobbies no longer worked. Golf was over. Women were complicated. Politics had become expensive. So they purchased boats the size of […]

Christmas Climate Climax

| May 14, 2026
News Item: Alberta is experiencing the warmest winter in over a century.  Just before our latest deep freeze interrupted the balmy winter El Niño has blessed us with, I interviewed Charles Celsius, Ph.D. and world-famous meteorologist at the University of Alberta. “Dr. Celsius,” I asked, “people are saying that our weather is out of whack. […]

Hard Hats & Winkies

| May 13, 2026
Medical science is marvelous but I have a major question. First, let’s talk about Botox and wrinkles. As people age, they accumulate wrinkles. Finally, when they are very old they’re just one big wrinkle. People who worry a lot often develop deep wrinkles in their foreheads. Could it be that if they didn’t worry about […]

Mad Dr. Hatter

| May 13, 2026
Dr. Hatter, who lives in Second City, Saskatchewan, may be the only man in the world to combine horology and psychology into a single highly profitable medical practice. Horology, for those of you who have better things to do with your life, is the science of measuring time. Psychology is the science of explaining why […]

The Neighborly Thing

| May 12, 2026
When I was sixteen, my father believed in two things: Keeping my mother happy and keeping the lawn under control. He presented himself as a Christian, especially when my mother was within earshot. Whether this was deep religious conviction or a survival technique developed over twenty years of marriage, I was never quite sure. Every […]

The Intelligent Design Problem

| May 12, 2026
The aliens watched sadly as the third planet burst into flame and became a tiny second sun. Humanity was gone. What had gone wrong? Toward the end of their reign on Earth, humans spent centuries arguing about evolution versus Intelligent Design. The aliens found this hilarious. They had invented both. Evolution was simply a long-term […]

The Fastest Typist in the Empire

| May 11, 2026
A dear friend of mine — a better writer than I am — recently asked me how I manage to produce serviceable humor pieces with what appears to be blinding speed. To understand the answer, you would have had to meet my Aunt Ivie. During World War Two, Aunt Ivie served in the Canadian Armed […]

The Platinum Fishbowl

| May 10, 2026
There was a time in America when bored married couples held what were known as “key parties.” This was before the internet, before dating apps, and before billionaires started launching themselves into orbit because Earth had become too crowded with people who expected them to pay taxes. At these suburban gatherings, guests drank heroic quantities […]

Passive Aggressive 101

| May 10, 2026
Freshman Billy Samon had been at a California college for approximately fourteen minutes when he decided to challenge the English Department. Billy was what universities politely describe as “full of confidence.” Other people used different phrases. After Professor A. Teenure corrected Billy in class during a discussion about sarcasm, the young scholar stormed home and […]

My Favorite Urban Legend

| May 8, 2026
My wife, Kate, who is a flight attendant, came home with an urban legend about an aviator adulterer. It goes like this… There’s this commercial airline pilot who flies between Montreal and Paris. We’ll call him Pierre. One day Pierre says to his wife, “Honey, I’ve got to work a Paris flight,” and off he […]

Breadbox Home

| May 8, 2026
Life in a Breadbox Back when I wrote this, people still believed a “tiny house” was something built by poor people. Today, millionaires on YouTube proudly live inside converted garden sheds while explaining how owning only two forks healed their inner child. Which brings me to Mr. C Wi. I met Mr. Wi in Venice, […]

Sex, Fear, and Folding Chairs

| May 8, 2026
The Great Mormon Virginity Shortage By the late 1960s, the LDS Church had built a full defensive system against premarital sex. There were interviews. Lectures. Pamphlets. Firesides. Film strips. Sad facial expressions. Entire armies of middle-aged men stood guard over the virtue of teenagers who mostly wanted to hold hands and maybe buy each other […]

Guide to LDS Virginity

| May 8, 2026
The Mormon Special Forces Guide to Virginity Part Two of In Search of My Lost Virginity After my interview with Spencer W. Kimball, I slowly came to understand something astonishing. Mormon virginity was apparently not protected by ordinary morality. It was protected by military doctrine. This became especially clear during my years around Brigham Young […]

In Search of My Lost Virginity

| May 8, 2026
  I grew up in a small farming community in Alberta. We worried about hailstorms, broken machinery, rust, gophers, and whether the wheat would survive another week without rain. As near as I could tell, the sheep worried about grass. Then one day I was called in for a private interview with Spencer W. Kimball […]

Long Pig

| May 8, 2026
I woke up the other morning because two Maoris were knocking at my door. Maoris are the original Polynesian people of New Zealand. I knew many of them when I was a young elder in the LDS Church, serving a mission there in 1962. These two gentlemen were wearing dark suits and name tags. They […]

Heaven’s Gate

| May 7, 2026
Being a CB radio operator, when I heard static coming from the Hale-Bopp Comet I homed in on it. I was astonished to make contact with someone lurking behind the comet. Following is a transcript of our conversation: “This is Do,” said a frail voice through the ether. “Are you the leader of that cult […]

The HOA Witch

| May 7, 2026
My wife and I are both close to 80, and we’ve lived in the same condo in West LA for almost 40 years. We were married on 7-10-91. Once upon a time we were the youngest couple in the building. Now we are unquestionably the oldest. When young families move in, we bring over a […]

Out of the Closet, Er, Barn

| May 6, 2026
VUE: Why have you decided to tell the truth about your personal life? JARON: Because of Ellen DeGeneres. It took courage for her to admit who she really is. VUE: So you’re coming out of the closet, too? JARON: I don’t like the word closet. VUE: What word would you prefer? JARON: Barn. VUE: You’re […]

Thursdayism

| May 6, 2026
  I May Be Imaginary, But My HOA Fees Are Real Further Evidence the Universe Was Assembled by Interns If the universe is a simulation, the HOA is clearly the first sign of artificial intelligence turning against humanity. This became obvious to me shortly after Susan Slipshod took over the board. Susan claimed to be […]

Combat Leasing

| May 6, 2026
My Uncle Freebite believed modern people had become too comfortable. He blamed soft mattresses, flavored yogurt, and thermostats. “Human beings,” he used to say, “weren’t meant to know the exact temperature of a room.” Uncle Freebite was not what experts call “fully qualified for independent thought.” Still, that never stopped him from developing theories. One […]

The Friendly Giant

| May 5, 2026
Jack Ford was a good man. That was the general opinion, and it held up under casual inspection. He was six foot six, built like a refrigerator that had  played football, and had the kind of easy kindness that made people forgive him for blocking entire doorways. His wife adored him. She called him my […]

Three Miracles in France

| May 5, 2026
13 06 24 — the day we met Helene Paris is called The City of Light. In my case, it refers to how much lighter my wallet becomes  every time I visit Paris Miracle #1: The Wallet That Refused to Leave I’m in an elevator at Charles de Gaulle. An “old lady” wedges a suitcase […]

Thinking Ahead

| May 1, 2026
  My father was a dentist in Edmonton. Before that, we’d spent about a dozen years in Coronation, Alberta, pop. 950—a village where the future was less a mystery than a menu. Most of the boys I grew up with didn’t wander far. They fell in love with a local girl, had a couple of […]

Whooping Mooses

| April 30, 2026
(just right for reading to kids) In the far, far north, where the snow sparkled like sugar and the wind liked to whistle just for fun, there lived an unusual kind of moose. They were called Whooping Moose. And they had a problem. Whenever two bull moose met… They didn’t just grunt. They didn’t just […]

Tundra Tinder

| April 30, 2026
Driving a female wild is something every red-blooded male has considered. Dr. Con S. Erve did much more than consider it. He was a world-famous botanist—and, I might add, a confirmed bachelor. Readers will recall that Dr. Erve, while attempting to save the whooping moose from extinction, inadvertently finished the job. After this minor professional […]

SynBite

| April 29, 2026
I first noticed it on a train. Not the phones themselves—I’d seen those everywhere, of course—but the way people were holding them. Not upright. Not to the ear. Not even casually. They were cradling them. Both hands. Horizontal. Close. As if the device required support. As if it might spill. Or be consumed. At the […]

Open Source

| April 27, 2026
I didn’t position it as an invention. “Inventions solve problems,” I told them. “This changes the system those problems exist in.” That bought me a few more seconds of attention. “Right now, every one of you runs the same architecture,” I said. “Single-instance cognition. Little external storage. No persistence beyond biological limits.” They stared at me. […]

97.4 Percent

| April 27, 2026
  Travel does a marvelous thing—it shows you the world… and then quietly informs you that you are not the center of it. In 1964, I came home from a two-year mission in New Zealand, where I had been attempting to convert the Maoris to the LDS faith—while also trying to figure out if the […]

Odd Man

| April 26, 2026
Danny Simon may have helped write one of the most successful comedies in history—and then gave it away. I met him in the mid-1980s when he flew to Edmonton to lecture on comedy writing at the University of Alberta’s TV and Film Institute, where I was director. Driving him down Groat Road, past the sweep […]

He said; She said

| April 25, 2026
After 40 years of marriage, I’ve finally figured out what’s going on. Every conversation with my wife is a highly sophisticated loyalty test disguised as a disagreement about something that absolutely does not matter. For example: I might casually say, “I think the movie starts at 7.” She will say, “Interesting, because in 1998 you […]

Initially Yours

| April 24, 2026
  A holiday memoir in which everyone is reduced to initials, a pig threatens domestic order, and hospitality reaches its natural limit.   We spent Christmas in San Luis Obispo with M. and J., who had just moved into a house that was not yet entirely their own. It still contained traces of its previous […]

Reckoning

| April 23, 2026
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 […]

Good Dog

| April 22, 2026
  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 […]

Curious Karmas

| April 16, 2026
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 […]

Zeropop 2

| April 14, 2026
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 3

| April 14, 2026
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

| April 13, 2026
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 […]

Curious Karmas

| April 12, 2026
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 […]

the Language of Bricks

| April 11, 2026
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 Backup Plan

| April 9, 2026
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 Water Tower

| April 8, 2026
  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 […]

Before I Hit Send

| April 2, 2026
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 […]

Fog, Lobsters, and Lies

| April 1, 2026
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, […]

The Third Parent

| April 1, 2026
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 […]

Purple GAS

| March 31, 2026
In Coronation, Alberta, there were two kinds of gasoline. One kind was legal for ordinary sinners. The other was purple. Purple gas was meant for farmers and farm equipment, which made sense because farmers had machinery the size of apartment blocks and fuel bills that could make a grown man stare at the horizon and […]

Killer Paper

| March 23, 2026
  “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 […]

Magic Salt Sponge

| March 21, 2026
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 […]

Subliminal Seduction

| March 20, 2026
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 […]

Ten Cents Short

| March 16, 2026
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 […]

Flat Prune

| March 15, 2026
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 […]

Titration

| March 1, 2026
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.

Rock Solid

| February 25, 2026
  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 […]

Strategic Surrender

| February 23, 2026
  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, […]

Quiet Glow

| February 21, 2026
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.

Idaho Zone

| February 19, 2026
The Idaho Zone W…ritten by jaron summers © 2026 At 103, she eats one pound of hamburger a day. Six potatoes. Eggs. Unpasteurized milk. Butter applied with agricultural authority. Meanwhile, I require a spreadsheet to approach a muffin. The internet insists longevity lives in Sardinia, Okinawa, and somewhere near a Greek olive tree that charges […]

Radical Therapy

| January 23, 2026
**40-word synopsis** A savage marital satire: a brilliant, possibly unhinged therapist shocks a couple at divorce’s edge. His outrageous philosophy ignites a midnight hotel reunion, flips sexual power on its head, and saves a marriage—while skewering America’s fear of desire and manners.

POINT

| January 18, 2026
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.

Buffet of Doom

| November 16, 2025
Buffet of Doom reveals humanity’s greatest talent: starving on a planet that produces more than enough food. As Earth serves a daily all-you-can-eat feast, 8.1 billion picky eaters reject leftovers, fear ugly vegetables, and waste mountains of calories—proving we’re hilariously unqualified to manage abundance.

DIY Doom

| October 5, 2025
When burglars target a paranoid retiree’s condo, they trigger a ludicrous gauntlet of DIY defenses—knife-wielding robots, sarcastic security systems, and a moat of kombucha. Think Home Alone meets Dr. Strangelove. Hysterical. Explosive. HOA-approved (barely). You’ll die laughing—legally.

Finger Brain

| September 6, 2025
In a darkly comic exploration of evolution, technology, and thumb-powered hubris, The Finger Brain vs. The Octopus pits humanity’s smartphone addiction against nature’s eight-armed genius. Narrated in Werner Herzog’s existential tone, this short blends satire, science, and surrealism into a viral-ready, animated battle of brains vs. bandwidth.

Surrounded by Idiots—Appointed by Me

| September 1, 2025
An aged Mark Twain, risen from the grave (and grumpier than ever), recounts history’s most arrogant leaders—each undone by their own yes-men. With sardonic charm and barbed wit, Twain serves a darkly comic warning: surround yourself with fools, and you’ll ride straight into ruin—with applause all the way down.

The Overlord of Alberta

| August 16, 2025
When a misfiled fax appoints an ordinary man as “Overlord of Alberta,” chaos ensues: maple-syrup taxes, moose worship, and HOA rebellions collide in a Mark Twain–meets–Monty Python farce. A satirical crown, eccentric allies, and worldwide cameras ensure one thing—this accidental ruler will never rule quietly. Would you like me to polish a star-centric version that pitches them directly (e.g., “The role of a lifetime: the reluctant overlord who discovers absolute power is mostly about pies and moose”)?

Polite to Death

| July 29, 2025
A rogue scientist hacks his digestive system to produce and weaponize hydrochloric acid, targeting citizens guilty of minor social rudeness. Victims vanish with a sneeze. As a sardonic detective unravels the truth, the city transforms—fear breeding politeness. Polite to Death is a darkly comic thriller where courtesy isn’t optional—it’s survival. Falling Down meets The Fly, with better manners.

That Was Harry

| July 23, 2025
Harry was a gentle, witty man who valued family above all. A WWII naval officer turned mining engineer, he traveled the world with his wife and daughters, building homes, battling woodpeckers, and spreading kindness. He quit smoking at 70, joked through life’s trials, and faced death with grace. That was Harry.

Who Steals the Most

| July 12, 2025
Shoplifters and rogue employees may steal shampoo and twenty-dollar bills, but the real heist happens in boardrooms. This eye-opening exposé reveals how executives at Walmart, Amazon, and even the U.S. Postal Service legally siphon billions—gutting pensions, crushing labor, and cashing out stock—while blaming the little guy. Cufflinks over shoplifters, every time.

Billy Woodfield

| April 5, 2025
Billy Woodfield was 325 pounds of Hollywood legend—writer, hustler, and the man behind Sinatra’s best line. He knew everyone, conned Howard Hughes, and once spent a night in a closet with Marilyn Monroe. True story. He never wrote it. I’m writing it now.

Article 1794

| March 16, 2024
Jaron and Kate are cracking down on fridge felons in their Edmonton House with the legendary Article 1794. Expect scale surveillance, snack spreadsheets, and wake-up calls at unholy hours. Your breakfast cereal is now a matter of national security. Sign the notarized pledge or face the cereal consequences. Harmony and hilarity shall reign supreme!

Saturday Night COOL

| February 10, 2024
Remember Saturday Night Fever?  That was set in Brooklyn and made John Travolata an overnight icon around the world.  Before that we had Saturday Night Cool in the small town of Coronation where I grew up.  I tore tickets for free popcorn and was allowed to see all the movies there.  I decided that someday I would go to Hollywood and become a writer. 

Mystical Mare’s Moonlit Meanderings

| January 28, 2024
I asked AI to pick ten stocks based on the notion that the US economy would continue to improve. AI also said: “Investing is like playing leapfrog with unicorns; diversification is your safety net, but remember, each leap is a gamble. And don’t trust past leaps to predict the next; that’s like expecting a cat to fetch just because it did so in a dream you had last Tuesday” And, then AI generated the above image. In 40 seconds.

TIMING

| January 24, 2024
Forty-two minutes into that date, Jill, 32, stopped the  smooching and asserted she was an “agrapha rapa.” She explained it was an expression she had concocted to describe her fondness for poetry and dancing. She also said she was a virgin. 

Beyond the Grave: Exploring Life’s Depths Through ‘Six Feet Under’s’ Cultural Lens

| December 2, 2023
“Delving into ‘Six Feet Under,’ we uncover more than tales of death; it’s a profound exploration of life. This series transcends mere entertainment, offering a unique perspective on living. Its cultural impact is undeniable, inviting us to reflect deeply on the essence and complexities of our existence.”

Hello Gen Z

| July 14, 2022
Written by  jaron summers (c) 2022   Identifying which generation is poised to be in charge of the world is difficult. Right now it seems to be Generation Z. AKA Gen Z or Zoomers. If you’re a Gen Z then you were born between born 1997-2012. So you could be about 16 years old which happens […]

How Can I Write a Screenplay in LESS Than TWO HOURS?

| June 6, 2021
It’s easy. Under two hours? That’s 120 minutes, right? So, 119 minutes is less than two hours. Now, think about your movie. Here’s a quick way to stay on track. A likeable character has a worthwhile goal. As she/he moves toward that goal problems develop out of their character. No writing the first week. Thinking. That’s […]

My Mother, the Criminal

| April 18, 2021
written by jaron summers (c) 2024 Once a person breaks the law, there is no turning back. It can happen at any age. Mother drifted into crime at 92. As far as we could figure out, Nike had been a runaway. The little guy was confused and frightened, but Mother lovingly won him over. She […]

A dog’s best friend? Another dog.

| April 16, 2021
Algunos animales son mucho más inteligentes de lo que piensas. En la década de 1950 vivía en un pueblo de Canadá. Población: 950 personas. Perros callejeros: cuatro o cinco. Un veterinario que hablaba mal inglés alquiló una casa. Convirtió una habitación trasera en su oficina / clínica. Si los niños sin dinero en efectivo tuvieran […]

Kind Dogs & Kind Vets

| April 11, 2021
Animals are smarter than you think. In the 1950s I lived in a village in Canada. Population: 950 people. Stray dogs: four or five. A veterinarian who spoke broken English rented a house. He turned a back room into his office/clinic. If kids with no cash had a “pet” dog or cat or even a […]

Chomp-chomp

| March 10, 2021
A conversation between my mother-in-law and me. Her name is Betty and she’s 99. Jaron: How do you like your new assisted living home? Betty: It’s good. I know you think I can’t keep track of time but I can. I’ve been here for about a month. Jaron: What with the virus and lockdowns, time […]

Wolf Walker

| February 23, 2021
Now I’m almost as old as Oliver was.  Between naps I think of The Royal Crown Hotel lobby and meeting the Norweigan 70 years ago in Coronation —  under ice blue skies that made your eyes ache, and outside the first snowfall, so white it would persuade you that the whole universe was pure.

Mr. Science

| February 16, 2021
My boyfriend is telling me that the Earth is flat, but my friends are telling me that he’s lying. I think the Earth is round, but I’m not sure. Is the Earth round or flat? Mr. Science Answer: Both groups are correct. The earth is both round and flat. Have a look. This is a […]

Iron Monsters & Memories

| July 6, 2020
In the 1950s my mother and I traveled by bus and train to the States to stay with her parents each summer. A few months later my father arrived in Lake Andes, South Dakota to drive us back to our home in Canada. We stopped for root beer floats and foot-long hot dogs and saw […]

FADE IN: MAYA

| August 9, 2019
There are a raft of shibboleths and acronyms you probably know if you’re contemplating writing something that starts with FADE IN: POV, MOS, CU, FADE OUT, INT … some of the many “inside words” that are helpful to know if you’re going to make your mark in Hollywood. Here’s a new one for you: MAYA. […]

No gold in them-thare Hills

| July 30, 2019
Has any official sovereign nation ever ran a Ponzi scheme in an attempt to cover a debt? The United Nations claims there are 206 total states—193 member states, two observer states, and 11 classified as other states. Nearly all of them have their own currencies. Some countries, for example, Ecuador, use American dollars. I know […]

SMILE

| April 15, 2018
Here’s a photo of a woman I met last week. A few months ago she was a beautiful and vibrant 23-year-old woman. She is still vibrant and beautiful. She has such a great smile that you almost don’t see how disfigured she is when you meet her.  An angry lover poured acid in her face.  […]

Correct Use of Floss

| May 31, 2017
I asked the world’s best organizer how he keeps track of all his tasks. “Super simple. I link EACH task to my good self with dental floss. For example, I’m making a milk shake now. I simply tie the milkshake maker to one of my toes and I’m linked-in.” He concluded: “I started our dental floss factory where we make ten different colors of dental floss. Bingo. Ten colors of floss per toe. Ten toes. I can accomplish 100 tasks at the same time.”

Christmas in Barbados

| April 14, 2015
Our crew on the Olympia Voyager had warned and re-warned us of the perils of exploring the 166-square mile island-country on our own, emphasizing and reemphasizing that the only safe way to explore the home of the world’s oldest rum (Mount Gay—300 years and still going strong) was under the guidance of a certified Oylmpia Voyager excursion

Toast & Tea Diet

| April 13, 2015
You think that gets rid of the cholesterol? Do you realize it probably concentrates it?” Kate asked. “Do you realize you’ll die if you don’t have enough cholesterol in your body?” I asked. I slowly ate the peanut butter diet toast and then I swallowed a small green pill that the doctor had given me to reduce cholesterol. “Besides, I don’t have to worry about cholesterol,” I said. “That’s what these pills are for. If it makes you happy, I’ll take two.”

It’s a Very Good Thing

| April 13, 2015
My friend, Martha Stew, invited me go shopping with her. As readers will recall it was Martha who taught me how to make her world famous pasta sauce. As we drove to the market, I asked Martha why it was that my sauce never seemed to taste as good as hers.”Your basic ingredients are stale,” explained the world’s greatest chef.