I just finished reading Serenade by James M. Cain, and I’m afraid I cannot tell you whether I recommend this book or not. I will say this: If you’re looking for something completely different, this book is for you! Here’s my take, with lots of spoiler alerts. Maybe one person […]
I have a little ritual when I go to Greenfield. I go to the Raven Bookstore and buy a book and then go to Greenfield Coffee and sit and read a little bit of it. Then, of course, I take it home and become absorbed in it. The latest book […]
I do hope that this post will be moot, but here it is anyway, just in case. I’ve been steeling myself against the prospect of a Romney presidency, purely as a matter of self-defense. When Bush junior was elected — twice! — it really brought me down and impaired my happiness, […]
I think all our guests thought of Lea and me as a romantic couple, so a lot of our wedding presents were candlesticks and wineglasses, mostly wineglasses. We had a yard sale in Henniker and sold half of them, and then split them up when we got divorced, and still, […]
This guy’s name is Wachitawcha. He’s a soapdish. He belonged to my mother, who once had a thing for frogs. I call him Wachitawcha, which is not a name you would expect for a guy in a porkpie hat, but every time I see him he says, “Remember your mother […]
This is an excerpt from Xenophon’s Anabasis, a book which Alexander the Great kept under his pillow: After him, Xenophon got up, and spoke as follows: “Cheirisophus, it is agreed, sets out in search of vessels, and we are going to await him. Let me tell you what, in my […]
For the last year I’ve been reading The Thirty Years War by C.V. Wedgwood, and this book has changed everything I thought I knew about European history. I began reading, put it aside when it boggled my mind, and took it up again when I had assimilated what I had […]
These are two sculptures made from four pieces of wire I found in the fields on my morning jog. The first is called “Les Mouches Sont Fait: A Tribute to Jean-Paul Sartre” and the second is called “Oiseau” because it looks vaguely like a bird.
Just back from a tour of Spooky Colorado which included the coffin races in Manitou, lunch at a former mortuary in Denver, a ride on Banjo Billy’s log-cabin bus in Boulder and a ride in the back of a well-appointed hearse to the haunted places in Fort Collins. But the […]
