Nostalgia
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Podcast Episode: Hong Kong Travelogue
Note. The underlying article can be found here: https://ajprokop.com/2026/09/28/hong-kong-travelogue/ Pip: Some journals survive the years by accident — a drawer never cleared, a box never tossed — and occasionally that’s a genuine gift. Mara: Andrew Prokop has been publishing exactly that kind of gift on Can You Hear Me Now. Today we’re spending the whole… Continue reading
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Hong Kong Travelogue
The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes. Marcel Proust On March 28, 1998, I flew from Minneapolis to Hong Kong. As with my recently published trip to Ireland, I kept a travel journal that somehow survived the years. As with Ireland, I was there to teach… Continue reading
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Podcast Episode: Irish Travelogue
Note. The underlying article can be found here: https://ajprokop.com/2026/09/14/irish-travelogue/ Pip: There is exactly one post on the docket today, and it is a time capsule — a travel journal from 1997 that survived several computer deaths and one very determined blogger. Mara: Andrew Prokop found a long-lost journal from a work trip to Galway, Ireland,… Continue reading
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Irish Travelogue
Geographically, Ireland is a medium-sized rural island that is slowly but steadily being consumed by sheep. Dave Barry I did a lot of business travel over my long career. Looking back, I realize that it was too much. Both my family and I struggled with the long absences. I didn’t see it at the time,… Continue reading
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Podcast Episode: The Things We Keep, The Stories They Tell
Note. The underlying article can be found at https://ajprokop.com/2026/09/07/the-things-we-keep-the-stories-they-tell/ Pip: A coffee mug, a space-race tin, and a plastic cup from a baseball game that happened before some of our listeners were born — welcome to Can You Hear Me Now, where the objects on your desk apparently have opinions. Mara: Andrew Prokop’s recent writing… Continue reading
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The Things We Keep, The Stories They Tell
Humans think in stories, and we try to make sense of the world by telling stories. Yuval Noah Harari Frequent readers of my blog know that nostalgia plays a significant role in my writing. In fact, just last week in Lost in the In-Between I wrote, “I catch nostalgia like a cold.” While I don’t… Continue reading
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Podcast Episode: Lost in the In-Between
Note. The underlying article can be found at https://ajprokop.com/2026/08/31/lost-in-the-in-between/ Pip: There is a particular kind of melancholy that arrives in early September, right on schedule, whether you asked for it or not. Mara: Andrew Prokop is sitting with exactly that feeling in this episode — the uneasy space between what was and what’s coming, from… Continue reading
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Lost in the In-Between
I feel the taste of summer’s last kissa fond farewella sad goodbyeher warm embrace wears scarlet wingsriding retreat on cool autumn breezes Andrew Prokop It’s not even September and yet I feel the mutterings of autumn. The sun is slightly lower in the sky. The sumacs are already turning red and orange. The loons have… Continue reading
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Podcast Episode: A Myth Understanding
Note. The underlying article can be found at https://ajprokop.com/2026/08/17/a-myth-understanding/ Pip: There’s a slab of concrete near a waterfall in Minneapolis, and the question of whether a president ever stood in it is doing more philosophical work than most graduate seminars. Mara: Andrew Prokop’s recent writing takes that question somewhere worth following — into what myths… Continue reading
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A Myth Understanding
A myth is a way of making sense in a senseless world. Myths are narrative patterns that give significance to our existence. Rollo May As many of my readers know, I am an avid biker — as in bicycles. With the exception of the rare rainy day cancellation, I ride from the spring thaw to… Continue reading
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WannaHug — Values-Driven Shopping With a Twist
You can’t make positive choices for the rest of your life without an environment that makes those choices easy, natural, and enjoyable. Deepak Chopra As a child, I loved going grocery shopping with Mom. I would like to think she appreciated my help, but for her it may simply have been a chance to spend… Continue reading
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Podcast Episode: Let it Go
Note. The underlying article can be found at https://ajprokop.com/2026/08/03/let-it-go/ Pip: There’s a podcast called Can You Hear Me Now, and today it has something to say about the things we protect so carefully we forget to actually use them. Mara: Andrew Prokop’s writing this week works through one central tension — holding on versus letting… Continue reading
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Let it Go
Life is a balance of holding on and letting go. Rumi Warning: This is a bit of a convoluted, shaggy-dog article. It’s my hope that if you hang in long enough, it will eventually make sense. That is assuming any of my articles ever make sense. Despite not being related, I called my parents’ best… Continue reading
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The Boomer’s Guide to Surviving Technology
The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance. Alan Watts Every other Monday, my men’s retirement circle meets for connection, conversation, and friendship. It’s the most formal of all my groups, but the formality is still fairly loose. We begin with check-ins… Continue reading
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Podcast Episode: Where do the Children Play
Note: The underlying article can be found at Where do the Children Play. Pip: There’s a site called Can You Hear Me Now, which is either a meditation on human connection or a very long complaint about cell service — and today, Andrew Prokop makes the case that it’s definitely the former. Mara: Andrew Prokop’s latest… Continue reading
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Where do the Children Play
It is right that he too should have his little chronicle, his memories, his reason, and be able to recognize the good in the bad, the bad in the worst, and so grow gently old down all the unchanging days, and die one day like any other day, only shorter. Samuel Beckett As a grandfather… Continue reading
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Get Off My Lawn — The AI Edition
I often tell my students not to be misled by the name ‘artificial intelligence’ – there is nothing artificial about it. AI is made by humans, intended to behave by humans, and, ultimately, to impact humans’ lives and human society. Fei-Fei Li I recently came upon an article that stated that AI is creating a… Continue reading
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As Time Goes By
All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages. William Shakespeare I recently stumbled upon a website of world events throughout time. By poking around the years, I was able… Continue reading
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Point and Click
Looking through some photographs I found inside a drawerI was taken by a photograph of youThere were one or two I know that youWould have liked a little moreBut they didn’t show your spirit quite as trueYou were turning around to see who was behind youAnd I took your childish laughter by surpriseAnd at the… Continue reading
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We’ll Have to Muddle Through Somehow
There’s nothing sadder in this world than to awake Christmas morning and not be a child. Erma Bombeck Thursday will be my first Christmas without Mom. I have been facing this realization since her death earlier in the year, but the awareness has become more intense with each passing day. I can’t stop thinking about… Continue reading
