All About Peter

Early in Peter’s FBI file was a letter that he wrote to his parents (at least it seems to be to his parents), which someone had turned over to the FBI as evidence that Peter was a dangerous radical who needed to be investigated. (My strong impression from various bits of unredacted info in the […]

Peter liked a variety of different kinds of music. My impression was that among his favorite performers were the Beatles, the Grateful Dead, and several big-name jazz musicians. I know that he loved Pat Metheny; I went to a couple of Metheny concerts with him, and he owned at least a couple of the albums. […]

Oddly, I don’t seem to have written here about Peter’s “million-dollar ideas.” Every so often, he would come up with an idea that he was certain was amazing and never-before-thought-of. He always offered us these ideas for free, with the suggestion that if we were to implement one of them, it would make us a […]

Not an anecdote, just a memory: Peter almost always had a little jar of pickled cocktail onions in the fridge. Not for cocktails; he would just take one out and eat it as a mini-snack every now and then. I don’t know whether that was a lifelong thing or not. I associate it with him […]

Here’s part 4 (and last) of Peter’s “neat words” list. (See earlier entries: part 1, part 2, part 3.) These are the words starting with R through Z. radar raffis rara-avis ratite recuse riant riant rococo rodomontade romanesco rondo ronyon rumper rumply runcible-spoon rupicolous sackbut satrap schwa scrawny scrim scrimshaw scrod scrofulous scruff scruffy scrum […]

Another of the files rescued from Peter’s hard drive was a letter containing stories and anecdotes about Peter’s father and about Peter’s childhood. A lot of them were pretty bitter and unpleasant, and I won’t post those; and most of them aren’t directly about Peter anyway. But here’s one bit that I thought was interesting […]

Here’s part 3 of Peter’s “neat words” list. (See earlier entries: part 1, part 2.) These are the words starting with J through Q. jabberwocky jactitation jape jejune jocularity jodhpurs kerf kith klinker kludge krait kwashiorkor lambent lethargy ligature liminal lissome lowboy lubricious lucubration Luddite lugubrious luminous-flux lumpenproletariat lumper lustrum macron maelstrom malfeasance manque meander […]

Here’s part 2 of Peter’s “neat words” list. (See earlier entry for part 1 and background.) These are the words starting with F through I. There are quite a lot of F words, for some reason. fandango fanfaronade fantoccini fantod faradism farfel fasces fatuity filch flaccid flang flange flapdoodle fleer flense fletch flibbertigibbet flimsy flinch […]