Other Tragedies. By John von Daler

                  The Storyteller was his own story, so it was not surprising that he started his first chapter with himself: The surprise visit from a lawyer. The inheritence from a forgotten uncle. The sudden rush of ideas and plans.

Playing in tune. By John von Daler

                         Unlike flutes or harps or chimes, violins in their original state can sound awful. You have to be taught and to practice for years to make them sound beautiful.

Let Me Know If You Don't Receive This. By John von Daler

                  A kind of giddy and bizarre mood has dominated the internet since #Wiki leaked and Angela #Merkel lost her secure telephone connection.

The Hummer. By John von Daler

                           It started involuntarily. He was all by himself. He sat in his own tiny cubicle and either worked at a computer or took telephone calls in the great, curved, white building.

Signs of the Times. By John von Daler

                           Recently I saw a play about characters living in the fifteenth century. The actors actually had on costumes that imitated the style of the fifteenth century!

The Missing Link. By John von Daler

                   I see her face intimately, familiarly, as if I have known her for years. We two have shared good moments, bad situations, boredom, embarrassment, even passion. Yet still, when I try to say her name, I have no idea in which way to twist my tongue. My mind is a blank. This is embarrassing.

The Literary Do-Gooder. By John von Daler

                     She always wore her calico, #Dorothy of Oz-dress at two in the morning in front of the computer. It made her feel like a brave woman in a dangerous fairytale.

Lilies of the Valley. By John von Daler

                    Sometimes people are as unknowable as, say, a lawn full of grass. You look for something personable, something special and all you see is the great, green field without a break or a variation, just one, flat sheet of monotonous uniformity.

Real Shakespeareans abhor rosebuds. By John von Daler

                          I decided to watch "House of Cards". And what a #Shakespearean trip it was too - with Richard III asides and Mr. and Mrs. #Macbeth scheming away and #Ophelia in the lake and Iago in #Othello's ear - all without any post-Freudian explanations about the psychological make-up of the characters. Most of them are just mean - and, if they have a reason for being so, it has not as yet been revealed, despite references to college days and civil war ancestors.

#Sirens. By John von Daler

                   Thorkil did not think it strange that the island made him dream. After all, there were many films of many nationalities that played on much the same topic: well-intentioned men, by being kind and brave, can draw the attentions and advances of many adoring women.

Synergy. By John von Daler

                  Advantage? Maybe. Of getting old. You mix things up. On the long slide from memory to consciousness, pictures, tastes, smells, sounds run together, dissolving into each other and becoming one.

Entrapment. By John von Daler

                    This summer the media has been filled with sports events: soccer, cycling, tennis. So much so in fact that the sports metaphor has again positioned itself as a plausible way to describe our lives. It leads us to believe that we can compete our way to brilliant and beautiful lives.

Figures of Speech. By John von Daler

                     As the M.D. (Metaphor Doctor) pulled up at the margin in his brand new Statement 2014, a hand-made New Yorker vehicle, he took out his ipad and went over the details of the family he was to visit: