Re: master^ is not a local branch -- huh?!?

Ron Garret [off-list ref] writes:

quoted

When HEAD points at a branch, making a commit advances _that_ branch.  And
we say you are "on that branch".  When HEAD is detached, because it is not
attached to anything, it advances no branch.  "detached HEAD" is detached
in the very real sense.  It is not attached to _any_ branch.

OK.  The docs do not make that clear at all.  In fact, the following 
statement, copied straight from the manual, flatly contradicts what you 
just said:

There are many places in the documentation that simply predate the
introduction of detached HEAD.  The description talks as if you cannot be
in any state other than on a particular branch.  For example, "git pull"
talks about choosing where to fetch from and what to merge to the head
based on what your current branch is---obviously such a description is
ancient and doesn't talk about what should happen when you do not simply
have any "current" branch.

So it is understandable that you get confused and it is all
documentation's fault, not yours.

"The special symbol "HEAD" can always be used to refer to the current 
branch."

Always.  Except when it can't.

Exactly.

We would need to update the documentation.  While doing so, a general
guideline would be to keep in mind that they were written back when you
had to always be on _a_ branch (and they called it "current branch",
"branch HEAD points at", etc.).  When they describe that "the current
branch is updated in such and such way", what happens in a detached HEAD
state is that only the HEAD pointer that directly points at the "currently
checked out commit" is updated, without affecting _any_ branch.