In one of Irving Chernev’s wonderful chess books, there is a story about a chess club in Germany where some great master, I think it might have been Lasker, played this guy every month for a gold coin. Lasker’s friends told him, “You should let that guy win. He’s going […]
Everything about the dining experience at our Wildlife Dining Room — the food, the service, the ambience — is first rate. That’s why our patrons come back frequently, and often bring their friends.
Here’s a shot of Sunderland, Massachusetts from Mt. Sugarloaf (elevation 652 feet) across the Connecticut River in Deerfield. I was doing some serious huffing and puffing scaling this mighty peak, while little children hopped and skipped by me with no effort at all. I’m going to have to start climbing […]
I will be eternally grateful to whoever it is who leaves their old New Yorkers in the sauna at my gym. I’ve read about forest fires in Australia, brilliant Iraqi architects, Lebanese arms merchants, and lots of other interesting subjects. And just lately I came upon a story by John […]
Hayden Carruth, author of Scrambled Eggs and Whiskey, says Chase Twitchell’s poetry is “splendid and astonishing.” Here are a couple of her poems: Makeshifts Nothing has a name it can’t slip out of. The waterfall is solid ice by late November; the white pines vanish under snow that’s blue in […]
Chase Twitchell This evening I went to a poetry reading by Chase Twitchell at Smith College in Northampton, and boy was that a good time. A poetry reading is the exact opposite of television. Television spoon feeds you every lurid, graphic detail while you sit in a passive stupor. And […]
We haven’t been able to blog since last week, and I’ve been getting cards and letters from people all over the world concerned about Miss Megan Davis, who was swept up in the capture of Nanking by Nationalist forces in the Chinese revolution of 1911. As recounted by Grace Zaring […]
As I mentioned in previous entries, I’ve been trying to clear my house of clutter. The other day I picked up an old New Yorker, and it had an article about my friend Philip’s book about Lincoln’s Legacy. Couldn’t throw that away. Then I come to a 2003 edition of […]
My daughter Sarah just took a trip across most of the country to the Sundance Film Festival, which I followed along with all her other fans on Twitter and Facebook and her blog Erratic in Heels, and her articles on Scalawag and Vagabond. But now that she’s back, I’m getting […]
