For the last three weeks I’ve been lost in a feverish bout of flu, and what better companion could I ask for than Lost Memory of Skin by Russell Banks. The protagonist is a registered sex offender known as the Kid who, we eventually learn, is a virgin. In […]
I can’t say I’m having a lot of fun with Across the River and Into the Trees by Ernest Hemingway. I keep feeling like I’m missing something, and I’m not sure I care what it is. It’s about a colonel in the US Army occupation forces in Italy who, we […]
When I was in sixth grade, more than half a century ago, the man who brought the news of President Kennedy’s assassination to my classroom was The Reverend Francis Caswell, headmaster of Dexter School from 1938 to 1964. Rev. Caswell was a beloved teacher and mentor to hundreds of Dexter […]
We had a very active season at the birdfeeder this year, with four pairs of cardinals, a red-bellied woodpecker, and countless sparrows, chickadees, juncos, tufted titmice, bluejays, and pigeons. Then one day I put out the sunflower seeds and nobody showed up. I guess it was the hawk, tentatively identified […]
Just lately I was amused to see my hometown mentioned in a Swedish murder mystery. I was rereading Murder at the Savoy by Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo and found a reference to the Sacco and Venzetti murder trial in Dedham, Massachusetts. The Sjowall/Wahloo mysteries feature detective Martin Beck, who […]
Back in the ’80s, my brother Paul wrote a song called ‘Say It Ain’t So’ that went “Say it ain’t so/ When I tell you to./ I’m getting used to having my own way.” It was written during the Reagan Era, when people got tax breaks for buying SUVs and […]
My friend Harold and I went and saw the UMass Minutemen beat the Duquesne Dukes Saturday at the Mullins Center to keep their share of a four-way tie for first place in the Atlantic Ten Conference. The basketball action is great, but it’s also a great spectacle with lots more […]
I picked up a copy of Time magazine in the sauna the other day, and I nearly fell off the bench when I read the following passage: “To understand why a campus can be a dangerous place for a young woman, it helps to watch something called the Frank video. […]
I’m sure you’ve been wondering why archaeologist James Mellaart, after three highly successful seasons excavating in Turkey at the neolithic settlement of Catalhoyuk in 1961 through 1963, was denied a permit to dig in 1964 and again in 1966. Mellaart’s excavations at Catalhoyuk had unearthed a huge Stone Age city, […]
