All posts by rexmerritt

Survey Says

Technology is intrusive when it comes to mining consumers.

In the old days, sales pretty much determined products’ favorability along with foot traffic recorded in the establishment itself. Who would bother denying the success of a crowded store whose merchandise flew out the doors accompanied by a cacophony of cash registers?

Today, what is as simple as it was before? Continue reading Survey Says

Keeping True

On Father’s Day 2019, I performed an act my own late father might’ve considered sacrilegious. I attended a Dodgers game in Chavez Ravine.

To mitigate my baseball transgression I cheered for the visitors not the home nine.

Father was a Brooklyn Dodgers man through and through. The Los Angeles Dodgers could never have engaged his rooting interest. Continue reading Keeping True

Antipodes: Aftermath and End

Party people milled throughout Axman’s house. Then, he and an assemblage of housemates rented a structure only a cheery paint job saved from being judged Gothic.

This event occurred on a December 2009 night, in Quarropas. Our host had convened what we’d come to call “a gathering.” He scheduled “gatherings” once or twice a month.

From about the late 90s into the farthest aughts, how many party Friday and Saturday nights slid into late next morning inside his house? Looking back from June 2019? Too few and not damned near enough! Continue reading Antipodes: Aftermath and End

Antipodes: The Amethyst Twins

Annegreth and Lieslotte weren’t twins. An instant or two dedicated to closer inspection revealed this.

Yet thanks to same shaggy blonde manes, blue eyes, clear, sun-blessed complexions, and manners of smiling that made each tall though not lanky woman appear uncannily similar, clearer observations rescinded the quick judgment. Neither Uruguayan was truly indistinguishable from another. Yet that’s how most undiscerning strangers like MacDiarmid saw them. Continue reading Antipodes: The Amethyst Twins