Swapped!
Some time in the middle of last week, while tooling around the Internet, I came across an interesting tidbit. Lord of the Flies was getting a remake. William Golding’s classic 1954 novel about schoolboys marooned on a Pacific island had been adapted for the screen three times, most recently in 1990, so I suppose it […]
Weekend Update: Summer’s (near) end edition
Well, we’ve hit the penultimate weekend of ‘official’ summer and already we’re seeing the signs of the winding down of the season: one of the big baseball camps in the area is already empty, already moving in the bulldozers and heavy equipment for what will almost certainly be another expansion. The big camp is still […]
Celestial Events and other things
Semi-random postings for this ecliptic day. * As you may or may not know, I write a monthly column for one of our local papers. This month’s column is on eclipses. Take a read! * That column is not exactly a “How to” guide for safe eclipse viewing. If you want that, go here! * […]
Short thoughts on Charlottesville
I had two uncles who served in the Navy in World War II. Another flew a P-38 with the 8th Air Force out of southern Italy. Three of my friends had fathers who helped liberate Europe. Two of them swept across France and fought in the Battle of the Bulge. The other landed at Anzio […]
From the Department of “NOW I’ve Seen Everything”
Okay, first off, I’m going to admit that this is a blatant ‘filler post’ that has nothing to do with writing. The fact is, once again I was unprepared this morning, then got home late, had a late dinner, so here we are, with me trying to maintain something of a schedule. Then again, maybe […]
Writing and…Cold Cuts?
Last week, we picked up some cold cuts at the deli counter at the supermarket. Ham. Turkey breast. A little Swiss cheese. Tasty stuff. The ham was perfect, thin sheets you could almost see through. The turkey, the same, at least when the clerk held up a slice for me to look at an approve. […]
“The Doctor is a–“
In 1974, Mel Brooks released Blazing Saddles, which is at once a brilliant and intelligent satire of racism and a typical, infantile Brooks film. In the movie, the Attorney General of some unknown state tries to force the residents of a town to sell their land cheap in order to build a railroad through it. […]
Put a Bow on it
Yesterday (Sunday, the 16th), at pretty much high noon, I pushed back from the computer, the final chords of the Grateful Dead’s spirited-but-sloppy “Scarlet Begonias” first set closer from July 16, 1976 still ringing in my ears, and said, “Finished.” The latest WiP had been completed. Not finished finished, mind you. In early evening I […]
Thoughts on the MOOC (Part II)
Well, look at that, me delivering on a promised post! I even went to the extraordinary step of pre-writing a good portion of this post; still, it’s just past six a.m. on a Monday and my coffee’s not quite ready yet, so there’s no guarantee of actual coherence here. When I wrote about this previously, […]
The Reading List, 2017 (Part II)
Happy Independence Day (early) for my American readers! Happy Canada Day (late) for my Canadian readers! And happy [insert appropriate holiday here] for my [insert appropriate nationality, ethnicity, religion, etc. here] readers! Whew, I think I covered it. Last week, I wrote about the MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) I’m in, and the promise to […]