After writing on Tuesday about an unlicensed Monty Python/Beatles t-shirt that amused me, yesterday saw a package stuffed in my mailbox — an unlicensed Washington Nationals World Series t-shirt. After the Nationals won the World Series, my Facebook feed was filled with ads for unofficial Nats World Series merchandise. Especially unofficial t-shirts. I bought anContinue reading “Starring Snoopy, a World Series T-Shirt”
Author Archives: Allyn Gibson
A Silly Walk Across Abbey Road
My Facebook feed — and yours, too, I’m sure — is filled with ads for bootleg, unlicensed t-shirts and has been for at least three years. I was going to write “months” there instead of “years,” but I remember that, when I was in Chicago on business in 2017, I saw someone wearing an unlicensedContinue reading “A Silly Walk Across Abbey Road”
Exploring an 1883 Map of Washington, DC
A few months ago, the novelist Howard Weinstein posted to Facebook a link to Edward Sachse’s “Bird’s Eye View” map of Baltimore in 1869, and I poured over it, finding the location where my great-great-grandmother and her father lived at the time and the church where my great-grandparents might have married in 1900, as itContinue reading “Exploring an 1883 Map of Washington, DC”
An Angel Tree Package
This morning I turned in my Angel Tree package at work. This year, it was for a seven year-old boy. When I was seven, my parents gave me a hardcover copy of Carl Sagan’s Cosmos. The book is well-loved and sits, to this day, on the bookshelf in my dining room. I tried to getContinue reading “An Angel Tree Package”
Moonrise at Sunset
I happened to turn around and caught a glimpse of the rising moon through my office window.
The Coldest December
On December 6, 1917, two ships collided in Halifax, Nova Scotia’s harbor. One of the ships, the Mont-Blanc, carrying munitions en route to Europe, caught fire and, shortly after 9 o’clock local time, the cargo exploded, laying waste to the city and surrounding communities, killing (officially) two thousand and injuring nearly 10,000 more, in what’sContinue reading “The Coldest December”
The Wilde Wedding
You buy a movie at Dollar Tree, you shouldn’t have high expectations. That movie? 2017’s The Wilde Wedding. Retired movie star Eve Wilde (Glenn Close) is getting married (her fourth trip down the aisle) to British novelist Harold (Patrick Stewart), and among the guests is Eve’s actor ex-husband (first), Lawrence Darling (John Malkovich), with whomContinue reading “The Wilde Wedding”
Does Charlie Brown Have a Secret Cousin?
Sunday night I watched Bon Voyage, Charlie Brown (And Don’t Come Back!!) and its follow-up animated special, What Have We Learned, Charlie Brown. Given the subject matter and the time (Veterans Day weekend), it seemed appropriate. In the movie and the special, Charlie Brown and three of his friends (Linus, Peppermint Patty, and Marcie) travelContinue reading “Does Charlie Brown Have a Secret Cousin?”
Scenes from the Nationals World Series Parade
Washington DC shut down yesterday for the Washington Nationals’ World Series parade down Constitution Avenue. One month ago I was in the hospital, in the Intensive care ward. I thought there was a real chance I was going to be mostly blind for the rest of my life. Yesterday, I was at the a WorldContinue reading “Scenes from the Nationals World Series Parade”
A Gatsby Party
Since it’s a rainy, gross morning in Pennsylvania, I’ve spent the morning going through photographs on my phone, culling them. And that brings me to this photo. This is a painting that hung in my room in the intensive care ward at St. Joseph’s earlier this month. It’s an autumn painting, a blanket of leavesContinue reading “A Gatsby Party”