Last week I received an email from The Who. Roger Daltrey is releasing an album next month, a symphonic version of The Who’s seminal album, Tommy, to mark the original album’s fiftieth anniversary. Confession time. I wouldn’t characterize myself as a huge fan of The Who. Yes, I have their entire studio discography, not to … Continue reading A New Symphonic Tommy
Author: Allyn
A writer, editor, journalist, sometimes coder, occasional historian, and all-around scholar, Allyn Gibson is the writer for Diamond Comic Distributors' monthly PREVIEWS catalog, used by comic book shops and throughout the comics industry, and the editor for its monthly order forms. In his over ten years in the industry, Allyn has interviewed comics creators and pop culture celebrities, covered conventions, analyzed industry revenue trends, and written copy for comics, toys, and other pop culture merchandise. Allyn is also known for his short fiction (including the Star Trek story "Make-Believe,"the Doctor Who short story "The Spindle of Necessity," and the ReDeus story "The Ginger Kid"). Allyn has been blogging regularly with WordPress since 2004.
I missed this completely last week — Carlos Zambrano is staging a baseball comeback, signing a deal with the Chicago Dogs, an independent league team in the Chicago area, and hoping that he can remake himself into a useful reliever and get picked up by an MLB team. Zambrano was that fiercely talented, short tempered, … Continue reading Carlos Zambrano’s Return to Baseball
We will start with a ending, and end with a beginning, as Gandalf says in Rankin-Bass’ underrated yet weird animated adaptation of Return of the King. I went to a York Revolution baseball game last night and came home with a Ross Detwiler game-used jersey. The Revolution were having a Negro League Night. From the … Continue reading Negro League Night in York
Mike Pence and I have something in common. We both attended the now-defunct Christian rock festival Ichthus (“the Christian Woodstock” or some nonsense like that) in Kentucky and had significant experiences in our religious development there. For Pence, Ichthus was formative in becoming an evangelical Protestant. Pence was raised Catholic, his siblings remain Catholic to … Continue reading Losing My Religion
The Harrisburg Senators began their 2019 campaign on Thursday with an 8-4 victory over the Bowie Baysox. Friday night’s game was rained out and rescheduled for Saturday doubleheader. I had a ticket for Saturday’s night, one I bought the day individual tickets went on sale early in March. Now I was getting two games for … Continue reading A Day of Baseball in Harrisburg
Yesterday I learned a cousin designed Mr. Boh, the one-eyed, mustachioed mascot of National Bohemian Beer, better known in the Baltimore area as Natty Boh. His name was Donald Fenhagen. He was the PR director for the National Brewing Company and, in addition to Mr. Boh, he was part of the team that came up … Continue reading A Notable Relation and the Land of Pleasant Living
Late last year I had a dream that I found the grave of Captain Thomas Feenhagen, my great-great-great-grandfather. Feenhagen, the father of my my great-great-grandmother Susan and grandfather of my great-grandfather Allyn Gardner, was a sea captain. He commanded a merchant ship, the bark Seneca, in the 1850s and 1860s. From what little I’ve been … Continue reading Exploring Mt. Carmel Cemetery
I had the flu. It’s taken me a little while to come around to that point of view. When asked, at the time I told people things like “It’s just an upper respiratory infection” or “I have bronchitis.” And, even now, I have an occasional, lingering cough. Let’s go through it. March 7, Thursday. I … Continue reading Recovery
Sesame Street is coming to an envelope near you; the Postal Service has announced a series of Sesame Street stamps, featuring most of your favorite Muppets. I say “most”; Sherlock Hemlock is nowhere to be found. To promote the stamps, the Sesame Street Twitter account asked this important question yesterday: We’re re-enacting Cast Away, but … Continue reading Stuck in the Middle with You
I left work early this evening. It was snowing heavily, I had finished with a project, and it was a good time to go. There were light flurries in the morning when I left for work. Nothing that amounted to much. At lunchtime, even though it was forty degrees, the snow was heavier. Mainly, though, … Continue reading Wheels Down
Today, being a nice day before the polar vortex arrives midweek (or not), I went down to Baltimore for some cemetery exploring. On Monday, I found a reference to my great-grandfather Allyn Gardner in a defunct Baltimore daily German language newspaper. According to a one-line note, he was the witness to a marriage license issued … Continue reading Gathering Evidence on a Genealogical Puzzle
On Friday, a colleague of mine at work was let go. He had been with the company twenty-two years. A dozen years ago, he was the best mentor I could have had, taking a not-inexperienced writer and turning him into a copywriter. Then he moved into other, consumer-oriented projects, and we didn’t interact every day … Continue reading The Absence