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That night, in the middle of the night, the wind came up and blew away the clouds. I got out of bed and stuck my head out the window. The air was cool but not cold. The sky was full of stars. The stars told a story. This was the story they told.

After God created the earth, the earth began to look at itself. The more the earth saw, the more it learned, but the earth learned things the hard way. Whenever it saw things as facts, it turned those facts into mysteries. Whenever it saw things as mysteries, it turned those mysteries into facts. This happened because God himself was a mystery. It...

Wednesday, August 1, 2007
by Joshua Baer • THE magazine • One Bottle

Edward Weston was an extraordinary photographer. He was born in 1886, he died in 1958, and he spent a lifetime taking the kind of photographs every photographer wishes he or she could take. If seeing is an art, then Edward Weston was one of a handful of twentieth-century artists who changed the art of seeing. Each time I see one of his photographs, my eyes celebrate.

Weston La Barre was an extraordinary anthropologist. He was born in 1911, he died in 1996, and he spent a lifetime writing books about the conflict between human nature and the human soul. His best book is

Sunday, July 1, 2007
by Joshua Baer • THE magazine • One Bottle

When you meet someone for the first time, you have options. You can be yourself or you can be the person you always wanted to be, and the same is true for the other person. Regardless of whether or not you become friends, the possibility of friendship casts a glow over your first impressions of each other. A certain degree of beginner’s luck is involved. The trick is to keep your expectations from sabotaging that luck.

When you taste a wine for the first time, it’s not all that different. If you pay two hundred dollars for a bottle and expect the wine inside that bottle to change your...

Friday, June 1, 2007
by Joshua Baer • THE magazine • One Bottle

Language and wine are related. One goes into the mouth. The other comes out of it. When you learn about wine, you learn a language. If you speak about wine in numerical terms, you experience wine as a quantity. If you speak about wine in conceptual terms, you experience wine as an idea. If you speak about wine in terms of choices and emotions, you experience wine the way you experience life.

In the late 1970s, when I first started drinking good wines, I was introduced to a businessman in San Francisco named Phillip Sammartano. Mr. Sammartano was known in and around the Bay Area for having...

Tuesday, May 1, 2007
by Joshua Baer • THE magazine • One Bottle

The state where I live has a shadow government. In that shadow government there are many departments, more departments than anyone can count. I work in the Department of Highways and Memories. Some people say I got fired from the Department, or that I retired for medical reasons. Other people say I run it. All of those people are mistaken. I’m still on the job, but no one can run the Department of Highways and Memories because no one can know where it begins or where it ends. Anyone who tells you otherwise is trying to scam you out of everything you love and hold dear.

Sunday, April 1, 2007
by Joshua Baer • THE magazine • One Bottle

Heaven is supposed to be the opposite of hell. Kind is supposed to be the opposite of cruel. Love, poverty, water, and truth are supposed to be the opposites of hate, wealth, fire, and fiction. Black and white, left and right, female and male, gay and straight, cats and dogs, immortal and mortal—all of these pairs are supposed to be opposites.

Virgil was a Roman poet. He lived from 70 B.C. to 19 B.C. He coined the phrases tempus fugit (“time flies”) and omnia vincit amor (“love conquers all”). He wrote the Georgics and the Bucolics. He also wrote the Aeneid, a book-length narrative poem...

Friday, December 1, 2006
by Joshua Baer • THE magazine • One Bottle

People who worship money laugh at people who worship people.

People who worship people have their doubts about people who worship God. People who worship God think that people who worship people and people who worship money are in for a big surprise. This may or may not be the best of all possible worlds, but it’s our world and it’s the only world we’ve got.

If you worship money, you point to the facts. We have always been a competitive species and money is the most benign way to keep track of who’s winning. Using money as a weapon can be cruel, but as weapons go, money is less lethal...

Wednesday, November 1, 2006
by Joshua Baer • THE magazine • One Bottle

My parents grew up during the great depression. They believed in accountability, character, hard work, and obligation. They also believed in the power of beauty.

My wife and I grew up during the Cold War. We believed in animals, creativity, love, metaphysics, and wilderness. We also believed in the power of beauty. Anything beautiful had a message behind it. To decipher that message was to glimpse the nature of existence.

My children grew up during the great bull market. My daughter believes in Jesus Christ and in helping people. My son believes in himself and in his future. Both my...

Friday, September 1, 2006
by Joshua Baer • THE magazine • One Bottle