Film, Television, Sex, Music, Literature, Pop
It’s possible we would all be happier if we stopped trying to make sense of things. It’s five in the morning, after all, and I might be wrong, but I see an article by PJ Media about a conservative web site, (The Liberty Conservative) pressured by Google into pulling one of its articles or risk..
My wife, years ago, wooed me into the long vacation. I’m aware that the John Cheever gentry might have seen vacation or “summering” as something that extended out for three or four months at the shore, but for me, as a child, the “long vacation” was two weeks. It was a mythical thing. We never..
Heavenly Village and Environs South Lake Tahoe. I officially like this place. It’s got a pronounced Emerald City vibe. The shuttle driver drove me past several Tin Men getting re-polished and Scarecrows getting re-strawed on the way to the Driftwood Cafe for breakfast. He connected me, mentally, to my family who took the same route..
If road trips were pretty girls, the drive from Chester to Lake Tahoe, along the 70 and the 89, would be Donna Reid in overalls, with straw in her hair and a dozen children in her eyes. The forest is dense, green, and endless, opening up onto storybook meadows with cattle grazing and century-old barns..
I’m finally getting around to reading Puritans at Play by Bruce C. Daniels. It’s been in my library for a decade or more, and right from the start it speaks to a concept I’ve struggled with, in one way or another, my entire life. The New England Reverend Benjamin Colman called it “Sober Mirth” —..
I watch way too much television and streaming film, I know. My Bay Colony ancestors — if they could anticipate this technology — wouldn’t approve, but what I can’t figure out? I can watch a fair amount of violence — the Normandy scene in “Saving Private Ryan” for example or the Michael Corleone restaurant vengeance..
Let’s Cancel The Race Card Entirely, Shall We? Look, folks if you were born after, say, 1955, in America, you’ve grown up ingesting the whole salad bowl, melting pot, indigenous people, civil rights smorgasbord. We’ve had all the various race dish problems named and studied. We grew up on Star Trek global citizens exploring brave..
Otters. Lake Otters, to be precise. “There’s a story,” my wife said, “about some swimmers who had to fight them off coming out of the lake.” She let this sink in. I didn’t listen to the rest of the encounter as she Googled the article and recounted details for the extended family. I just processed..
It’s been a weird, weary week, folks. I’m in the history business, after all, and history is taking a severe beating. Everything has to be dismantled. Everything must go. It’s all on sale. The pyramids, the ancient Assyrian relics–subject to the sledge-hammers of ISIS. Robert E. Lee needs to be hoisted off with a crane…
Emails That Don’t Tempt Me.. Walking, Thinking Mary and I walked four miles this morning. My preferred cardio is the elliptical, but we are on vacation and we have to improvise. I’m a student of elliptical machines — having foolishly purchased really cheap machines designed for very small people with short-lived New Year’s resolutions. The..
