For a few months now, I’ve been referring to tomorrow’s inauguration of a new President by quoting Gerald Ford’s famous phrase from his address to the nation upon taking the office at Nixon’s resignation — “Our long national nightmare is over.” But that’s not exactly true. George Bush will be leaving office tomorrow at NoonContinue reading “On the End of the Beginning”
On a Nagging Question
I wonder if there’s a statue of Pitt the Elder in Pittsburgh. If there’s not, there should be; the city’s named after him, after all. I mean, if Philadelphia can have a statue of William Penn, surely Pittsburgh can have a statue that commemorates one of England’s greatest Prime Ministers.
On “The B Game”
I don’t have anything today. I blame my right foot. It still hurts like muddafudda. Strangely, the one piece of footwear I own that doesn’t hurt my foot when it gets like this is my Nike hiking sandals. So, naturally, on a day when it’s below 20 degrees outside, I’m wearing sandals, shorts, and aContinue reading “On “The B Game””
On the Cold
It was cold today. Really fucking cold. I shouldn’t complain. It was fifteen degrees here in Charm City. Other places were far below that. Still, it’s cold. I don’t like the cold. I especially don’t like the cold, because it makes me limp. Many years ago in college, I accidentally brutally broke a bone inContinue reading “On the Cold”
On Unwritten Scenes
I’ve had The Lord of the Rings on the brain of late, the proximate cause being the repeated e-mails I’ve received from GameStop telling me to come into a local store to pre-order Lord of the Rings: Conquest, which came out on Wednesday. And then, of course, there was my discovery that a new TolkienContinue reading “On Unwritten Scenes”
On Longer Days
For a few months now, my grandmother has expressed confusion at dinner time. It’s dark outside. And in her mind, we shouldn’t eat dinner when it’s dark. Dark, to her, means breakfast. Since it’s dark, the meal must be breakfast, even if it’s not remotely breakfast-like. Surely there must be a time change at hand,Continue reading “On Longer Days”
On Tricking Out Opera
Yes, I know. I’m an evangelist for Opera. I can’t help it. For this atheist, the Opera browser is the closest thing to a religious experience I’ve ever found. 😆 Gah, that sounded bonkers. Seriously, though. It’s not just my favorite browser. I simply couldn’t imagine using the Internet without it. Firefox, IE, Safari –Continue reading “On Tricking Out Opera”
On a Graveyard of Boxes
Along the subway line, there is a graveyard of newspaper boxes. The train rolls along, through a wooded stretch of track, and then, suddenly, on the south side of the track there is a fenced off area with woods all around. There, in the middle of the enclosed space, stands perhaps twenty newspaper boxes. TheyContinue reading “On a Graveyard of Boxes”
On Evening Conversations
My grandmother was taking a nap. Dinner was ready. I needed to wake her. She was on the couch. I shook her foot, and she let out a ooh! of surprise. “Dinner’s ready,” I said. “You mean breakfast,” she said. “No, dinner.” “It’s dark,” she said. “Of course it’s dark. It’s dinner time.” “We justContinue reading “On Evening Conversations”
On The Century of the Black Ships
Recently I was given a history book on a narrow, though interesting, subject — the literature of Japanese/American warfare written between 1900 and 1940 entitled The Century of the Black Ships. It was written by a Japanese scholar, Naoki Inose, and published in Japan in 1993. Viz, a manga publisher, translated the book into EnglishContinue reading “On The Century of the Black Ships”