This little story was written in 1993, but given the financial fiasco that civilization got itself into in 2008, and hasn't really got out of, with the giant problems of global warming, habitat destruction, over-population, and the need for some kind of global government still staring us in the face as we continue to quarrel … Continue reading The Dairy Farm |A Galactic bailout for Earth?
Watch out for Sociopaths
This was originally a post on my previous blog, Loner's Highway, where I was describing the different types of loner. Sociopaths (sometimes called psychopaths, an older term) are a very different kind of loner. Contrary to what most people think, they are not demented haters of humanity. They like the rest of us very much. … Continue reading Watch out for Sociopaths
In Defence of Bullfighting | The Old Matador
Because I eventually want to put a collection of my SF short stories on this site, I'm introducing another one today. During the winter and spring of 1969 I was in Mexico City, working from Monday to Saturday teaching English in a busy school on the Insurgentes. On Sundays, I regularly visited the famous Plaza … Continue reading In Defence of Bullfighting | The Old Matador
My Lost Book – Skol
Though I've been told that my novel Skol is the best of my books, you would never guess that from its sales. My other novel, The Birdcatcher, has had many readers over the years, and the first edition of The Shyness Guide was once selling well enough that I was threatening to break even financially. Meanwhile, Skol has had no following at all. … Continue reading My Lost Book – Skol
Rescuing Jude
Have you read Thomas Hardy's 1895 novel, Jude the Obscure? If you haven't, it's the story of Jude Fawley, a shy, intelligent, sensitive boy, then man, who is too shy, intelligent and sensitive to fit into a callous, indifferent and hypocritical world. Jude is working class, but he longs to become a Greek and Latin scholar … Continue reading Rescuing Jude
Wild New York
Recently I came upon a post by a Toronto journalist celebrating the many ravines in Toronto, the refuge of much local wildlife, valleys created by the rivers that run south through our city. As someone who has been exploring those places since the 1960s, I know them well and I celebrate them too. But when … Continue reading Wild New York
Steppenwolf vs Herman Hesse
In my 2009 essay For Madmen Only (now a page on this site), I presented my idea that the ending of Herman Hesse's novel Steppenwolf isn't at the end of the book, but at the beginning. For several years that was a page on the previous Alan Conrad/Shy Highway website where it received more visits than the rest … Continue reading Steppenwolf vs Herman Hesse
Rescuing Fiction
When I had my previous website, The Loner's Highway, it was accompanied by a secondary blog known as The Society for the Protection of Fictional Characters, or, in short, the SPFC. I liked that name, and the acronym, but the acronym presented a problem. A web search found that SPFC includes: São Paol FC, a football/soccer … Continue reading Rescuing Fiction
What is your Dunbar number?
Do you know about Dunbar's number? A British anthropologist, Robin Dunbar, studied the size of stable social groups and concluded in the 1990s that an individual's preferred number of people is 150. Neolithic farming villages supposedly were that size, the basic operating units of armies since Roman times have been and are that size, and … Continue reading What is your Dunbar number?
Alan Conrad 