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Life at the Improv

Welcome to the I Am Larry Barnett Show. I’m your host Larry Barnett, and like you, I’m making it up as I go along. Hey, this is The Improv, right?

I know, you’re going to tell me you’re busy starring in your own show, and coming up with your own material moment to moment, but here … Read the rest

Larry Barnett Philosophy Leave a comment July 24, 2019March 12, 2020 2 Minutes

Talkin’ Dog-talk

I’m not a dog owner. As I frequently quip when asked if I have a dog, “I don’t have a dog, I have grandchildren.” On my daily walk around town I do encounter many dog owners; in some cases, the dogs are so large and the owners so small that it appears the dogs are taking their owners… Read the rest

Larry Barnett Culture Leave a comment July 11, 2019March 12, 2020 2 Minutes

Knock-Knock

Sense of “self” is just one among a constellation of mental states, and the experience of “I” varies considerably. “I” is described by some neurologists as a stable form of hallucination, which is to say, a subjective experience of being “in here”… Read the rest

Larry Barnett Metaphysics, Philosophy 1 Comment June 20, 2019March 12, 2020 2 Minutes

Regional Gods and local heroes

Despite the cultural arc of history of the past 500 years — the efforts toward emancipation and the relentless rise of science and technology — humanity appears terribly, one might even say, hopelessly, stuck. The habits and predispositions of our past — religious conflict, otherworldly… Read the rest

Larry Barnett Culture 3 Comments June 6, 2019March 12, 2020 2 Minutes

Theft and corruption

Whenever there is wealth and property, (and for the past 5,000 years when has there not been?), theft and corruption accompany it. Greek mythology prominently features Hermes’ theft of Apollo’s cattle, and virtually all major religions include prohibitions against theft. The Ten … Read the rest

Larry Barnett Culture 1 Comment May 24, 2019March 12, 2020 2 Minutes

The instrumentality of machine intelligence

Grain being ground to flour using grinding stones


Generally, we divide the history of human culture between the Paleolithic and Neolithic, “Paleolithic” meaning “Old Stone Age” and “Neolithic” meaning “New Stone Age.” The Old Stone Age included… Read the rest

Larry Barnett Culture Leave a comment May 8, 2019 2 Minutes

A border crisis?

Given what’s going on in the world, to simply classify people trying to cross our border as “migrants” or “illegal immigrants” is inaccurate. The reality is that many people, often entire families, are more properly refugees, desperately seeking to escape depredations… Read the rest

Larry Barnett Politics 1 Comment April 28, 2019March 12, 2020 2 Minutes

Deconstructing Sonoma

Witnessing the construction of Sonoma is easy, just take a stroll down West Spain Street and the homes rising on previously vacant parcels give ample testimony to the process of ongoing development, a process that’s been taking place more or less continuously since the building of the Mission.… Read the rest

Larry Barnett Land Use 2 Comments April 12, 2019March 12, 2020 2 Minutes

Your real-life 3D movie

You’re the director, the camera operator and play the lead. You’re the scriptwriter, too, and the costume designer, art director, gopher, finance director and critic. Everything about your movie is under your control, except the stuff that isn’t, which actually is quite a lot.… Read the rest

Larry Barnett Metaphysics, Philosophy 1 Comment March 28, 2019March 12, 2020 2 Minutes

The limits of freedom

The word “freedom” implies “no limits,” the presumption that free will alone constrains human action; but of course, we all know that with freedom comes limitations. Though English philosopher Thomas Hobbes built an entire belief system on the premise of the autonomous… Read the rest

Larry Barnett Culture Leave a comment March 16, 2019March 12, 2020 2 Minutes

Society recapitulates phylogeny

I recall my high school biology teacher, Mr. Ricci, explaining the phrase “Ontology Recapitulates Phylogeny”, as much because his long, snagged teeth made saying it nearly impossible for him to say, an amusing moment for us sophomores, as for the sheer poetry of its sound. It’s… Read the rest

Larry Barnett Culture, Philosophy 1 Comment March 3, 2019March 12, 2020 2 Minutes

Perpetual elections

Is the 2020 presidential election coming too soon or not soon enough? Still in the midst of recovering and adjusting to the realities of Trump, we now find ourselves already in the throes of an active primary season filling with Democratic candidates and murmurings of GOP challengers. Politics is a … Read the rest

Larry Barnett Politics 1 Comment February 14, 2019March 12, 2020 2 Minutes

Particular forms of torment

The methods and strategies devised by ego to sustain itself are largely primitive and barbaric. They display themselves due to the ways we feel and imagine ourselves and others, and the behavior that flows from that. Ego does not conform well to others; a daemon in the cave of self-identity it purposefully… Read the rest

Larry Barnett Philosophy 1 Comment January 30, 2019March 12, 2020 2 Minutes

No, we can’t all get along

Rodney King, who was pulled from his car and beaten

Put people together and you’re sure to find trouble. Families, husbands and wives, siblings, cousins, politicians; no matter how you find them, people always have trouble getting along. Human society reflects just how terribly difficult … Read the rest

Larry Barnett History, Politics 4 Comments January 16, 2019March 12, 2020 2 Minutes

My 400 mouths to feed

People like to take care of living things, like plants or pets. Watching plants or animals grow and change stimulates physical and emotional reactions only possible between living things. A pet rock may be attractive and a cute idea, but little more.

I’ve grown exotic plants for most of my adult… Read the rest

Larry Barnett Recollections Leave a comment December 25, 2018March 12, 2020 2 Minutes

The animate and the inanimate

Aion and Genius in Greek

As living beings we naturally gravitate to other animate things, like plants and pets that become companions in our homes and lives. The feelings we have for inanimate objects can become strong as well; possessions gain value–sentimental, economic, historic–and… Read the rest

Larry Barnett Metaphysics, Philosophy 2 Comments December 13, 2018March 12, 2020 2 Minutes

No land left for affordable housing? Hogwash!

There seems to be a persistent impression that the City of Sonoma has run out of land for new housing. If we’re talking about tens of acres of undeveloped land for tract housing, that’s correct, but Sonoma decades-ago rejected construction of large-scale tract-housing development on… Read the rest

Larry Barnett Land Use, Politics 2 Comments December 7, 2018March 12, 2020 2 Minutes

Eating out side of the box

It’s come to this; shopping, food preparation and cooking are so burdensome that corporate America has concluded a smart profit’s to be made from a niche target market, namely, those adults who are unwilling to eat frozen dinners or have Grub Hub deliver restaurant take-out but are too… Read the rest

Larry Barnett Culture 1 Comment November 22, 2018March 12, 2020 2 Minutes

Screen time — then and now

Much is being made at present about the effects of screen time, particularly on children. Screen time, of course, refers to the time spent engaged with one’s smart phone, iPad or laptop, which by all accounts has skyrocketed to epidemic proportions. Issues of attention deficits and addictive… Read the rest

Larry Barnett Culture, History Leave a comment November 17, 2018March 12, 2020 2 Minutes

Dimples in Space-Time

The distortion of space time shown in two dimensions

Now that the election is over, we can attend to other matters of gravity. Literally. Gravity is so ever-present in our lives we rarely think about it, except perhaps, when we slip and fall. The effects of gravity are well understood, beginnings with… Read the rest

Larry Barnett Metaphysics, Philosophy Leave a comment November 8, 2018March 12, 2020 2 Minutes

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