Essays
Nonfiction on language, the body, and the future — from close readings of single words to arguments about population, energy, and power.
Language & the Body
How words work on us below the level of meaning — a bioenergetic reading of language.
- A New Intro An Intro Essay A helpful visitor to this site recently suggested that I add an intro to this section: the writing and podcasts on language here, taken from the…
- The Somatic Foundations of Linguistic Systems The conventional understanding of linguistics frequently treats the alphabet as a static collection of arbitrary symbols, a secondary technology designed to…
- An Invisible Morality In a sense, all morality is invisible; that is, morality stems from feelings in the hearts and thoughts of people. The good actions and outcomes, or lack…
- A Short Essay on a Few Key Language Points A Few Basic Facts About Language You Probably Won’t Learn In School Since there are still only, literally, a handful of readers familiar with my work on…
- Language In 3-D All the rage in the world of video entertainment these days is the phenomenon generally referred to as HD. Whether applied to TV, movies or video games, the…
- Language and Breath An instructive experiment anyone can do in helping to determine why and how language is "bioenergetic" and in understanding the various ways in which that's…
- Imagine By Lee Strauss (Copyright @ 2012) As part of gen-culture coevolution, culture is reconstructed each generation collectively in the minds of individuals. When…
- Power Certain words in our language operate upon us subliminally in such intractably binding ways as to render their rhetorical effect difficult to modify. "Power"…
- Gravity An old essay, newly revised. Gravity’s Rainbow (did Pynchon get it?) and the War on Terror Part One The validity of bioenergetic analysis, whether of language…
- Repeat Repeat: an analysis (A key assumption to keep in mind here: the language most conducive to simple bodily pleasure and ease is none at all.) “R” the fulcrum…
- Rich and Poor Rich and Poor The name of this short article is, “Rich and Poor,” a topic often on people's minds these days. Let’s start by doing our usual bioenergetic…
- B B A "lip-activated" sound. This generally makes it mildly pleasurable and endows it with a directional "neutrality," propelling sound out or pushing it back in…
- Sounds --aw(w), law, saw, draw--"simpler, flat-a use of the letter “w”, connating a sense of human effort? Compare: ma, pa maw, paw As usual, nuances of meaning…
- aww aw(w), law, saw, draw--"simpler, flat-a use of the letter "w", connating a sense of human effort? Compare: ma, pa maw, paw As usual, nuances of meaning change…
- Who and Whom Who and Whom: a simple example of how the subliminal works in language and of why it's so hard to prove it exists. Have you ever noticed how, in modern…
- McLuhan Mashuan The medium is not the message, or at least it shouldn’t be. While language is often essential for conveying the truth, we should not confuse it with the truth.…
- General ♪ --Everything you can do with paint and canvas, you can do with words, sounds and the body, --As we broaden and deepen our awareness and understanding of…
Society & the Future
Population, energy, democracy, and the machinery of power.
- Democracy Democracy is impossible in a society in which the average person is unwilling or unable to manage his or her own life sensibly. Of course, in order to do this,…
- A Global New Deal Part of “quality of life” for most civilized people is knowing that they aren’t getting rich or living well at the expense of their neighbors. The new…
- Switching to Renewables Another take on the meaning of this website's title. Acknowledging again the often gross inadequacy of language when it comes to helping us with regard to…
- Corporation A Belated Response to Citizens United Essentially, the Corporation is a method for perpetuating the practical operation of an institution beyond the organic…
- Authority and Corporation in the Middle Ages Altogether, a portion of the rational basis for a moral system is cut away where persons and corporate actors must coexist. The immediate question is: What can…
- Psychonomics In college, I mainly studied literature and existentialism. But I did have to take other survey courses at the beginning, and one of them was economics. I…
- Surplus vs. Excess I was reading around my deep ecology anthology recently when I came across a short article by Gary Snyder, the poet, written over 30 years ago. I’ve never read…
- What is M*****s? We sometimes think ourselves clever referring to the term “military intelligence” as an oxymoron, a designation we think applicable when, from a more profound…
- Immigration Ok, Finally have the time to address myself afresh to the immigration issue/debate, as originating on 9/13 with Henry’s perceptive and provocative response to…
- Driving and Politics By Lee Strauss (Copyright @ 2011) For most of my life as a highway driver, my method has been consistent and automatic. Get on the road and head for the left…
- Hanging onto Our Heads at the Office . . . I have seen men who are very armored in the Reichian sense. Their body defenses, physical and emotional, often have several layers. While they often have…