Don’t be alarmed. It takes a fine mind to be this disordered.

The Joggled Mind collects the musings, pensées, polemics, and observations of Dr Essai. An enigmatic figure of murky provenance and sketchy character, Dr Essai bills himself as The World's Most Attentive Man™. It is not known how seriously that should be taken. He is believed to wander on foot for hours at a time observing, muttering, casting quizzical glances, and madly scribbling in a notebook with a somewhat misshapen left hand. According to accounts that cannot be verified, he reads three languages: English, American, Canadian. In all of them, the doctor pays attention to culture, politics, books, photography, everyday human doofusness, and whatever else waylays his hypercurious mind, with the occasional detour into a rotating clutch of obsessions that includes Bob Dylan, 1960s music, Montaigne (inventor of the essai) and other practitioners of essayism, Homer, quantum physics, science fiction, zen, strong spirits, and why Billy Joe MacAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge.

At some point in the recent past, the doctor entered an agreement with Dale Keiger to be his Boswell. The less said about this gentleman, the better. He is known to be the author of The Man Who Signed the City. He is known to be the former editor of Johns Hopkins Magazine. He is known to frequently imbibe strong spirits, being partial to the fruit of the juniper. The Joggled Mind could be regarded as this gentleman's Umwelt; the Doctor abides.

By the simple act of subscribing, you will receive, once or twice a week, the latest thing to cross Dr Essai's mind, distilled into far more order than the voltage generated by his disordered brain chemistry.

As for the title, we refer you to a letter written by Emily Dickinson: “[My father] buys me many books — but begs me not read them — because he fears they joggle the Mind.”

Indeed.