The Daring Spectacle: A Review

A few months ago, I started to read Mark Morford’s weekly column on SFGate. I was in love. His fluid, verbose, Tom Robbinsian,  snarky young Hunter S. Thompsoneque prose  aligns perfectly with my vibrations and connect to someplace in my soul which I reserve for epiphanies, cosmic revelation and orgasmic joy. I look forward to his column every week as a chance to swim in wine glass of text and examine a perceptive that eerily mirrors my own yet always leaves me thinking.

Knowing that I had missed years of his work, I ordered a copy of his book, a collection of his columns called The Daring Spectacle. Morford himself advises the reader not to read the collections straight through, but who the hell is he to tell me how to read his book? He warns that even he tires of his over-the-top, run-on-sentence, throw in a few words like yoga, vibration, and ecstasy style. He is right, there are times when the prose reads like a shtick, but over all this is an amazing book filled with funny, important, angry observations on human beings and how we function in a universe we are powerless to ever fully understand. But more than that, these essays are a tribute to the magical, mystical, maniacal observations we could all make about the world should we choose to look. 

I have added a few links below to some of my favorite columns, but I suggest you get yourself a copy throw it on your bedside table, backpack, toilet seat, coffee table and flip through it every time you want to be reminded that the world is an indescribable, wonderful roller coaster ride.

How To Sing Like a Planet: Me, I like to think of the Earth as essentially a giant Tibetan singing bowl, flicked by the middle finger of God and set to a mesmerizing, low ring for about 10 billion years until the tone begins to fade and the vibration slows and eventually the sound completely disappears into nothingness and the birds are all, hey what the hell happened to the music? And God just shrugs and goes, well that was interesting.

Behold, A Furry Blond Lobster: Knowledge is not fixed in stone. It is transitory and ephemeral and exists only so long as we pump it with meaning.

Dick Cheney Kills Birds Dead Because it is, in the final analysis, all about how you approach and engage the world, nature, yourself. It is all about with what degree of sacredness and veneration you walk the planet, treading lightly or stomping heavily, in awe of the interconnectedness or working to crush the beautiful and the weak for profit and hollow thrill. It is, after all, your choice. 

Please Kiss Your Old Toaster  What kind of energy do you want to cultivate? What kind of reverence do you want to experience? With what kind of step do you want to tread the planet? What the hell can you do every single day that makes the gods grin? Maybe, after all, these are the only real questions that matter.


Politics, yoga, sex, homosexuality, technology, art, music, nature, god, right-wing, left-wing, pain, joy...Mark Morford reminds us of what it feels like to be human. Let me know what you think.

Finally in a, "you gotta love social media for the access and connection it gives creator and consumer" moment: