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  Now that it’s over, I can ask, “How was your July?” I have a certain affection for the month due to the fireworks at the beginning and my birthday near the end. But this one lacked the usual oomph! A pervasive ennui hung in the air along with the miasmic humidity that... Read More →

  Years ago, I made the acquaintance of a man who wrote on occasion. Beyond the ambition of the Big Score that busted-out writers and horse players dream of, he had none. His main occupation at that time was swilling vodka, browbeating his fellow barflies, and bemoaning what... Read More →

  Seeing the photos of “trans woman” Glenique Frank after he won a marathon in London by competing in the female category gave me a moment of clarity about the current “men in women’s sports” phenomenon. They usually try to pull off what they presume is a feminine air... Read More →

  I had not been to visit my parents in more than four years when I finally made it back a few months ago. I was last down home in early 2019; we had said goodbye hoping to meet around the same time in 2020. A pandemic intervened. The world turned upside-down. Death.... Read More →

  There was a major freak-out when shortly after the fall of Roe Senator Lindsay Graham proposed a national ban on abortion after 15 weeks. I myself thought it was poor timing and impolitic. The pro-life stance had been about states’ rights, and the sudden change in focus... Read More →

  When my two sons were learning their catechism, I would joke that the most important of the Ten Commandments was the fourth: Honor thy father and thy mother. Some 20 years later, as I enter the Medicare phase of life, I recite for them (more seriously) the sage words of... Read More →

  If Pope Celestine V is familiar at all to us today, it’s because his name came up in 2013 during the resignation of Benedict XVI. As one of only a handful of popes who had previously abdicated, the erstwhile Peter of Morrone was perhaps the most hapless selection to the... Read More →

  A few weeks ago, I attended the world premier of “Tomo ni Ikiru: Shoka Kanazawa Shoko,” a documentary about the life and work of Kanazawa Shoko, the world’s greatest living calligrapher. The title means “Living Side by Side.” During opening remarks, the film’s director... Read More →

  My father was a master grade electrician and for a while he worked at the Ballantine brewing facility in Newark, N.J. Once, during a family car trip, he pointed it out as we passed by. I remember a huge expanse of buildings and cylindrical structures. He said an important... Read More →

  Mumbley Peg was a very popular game in 19th-century America, equal to marbles and jacks. In Mark Twain’s 1896 novel Tom Sawyer, Detective, mumbley peg, or “mumblety-peg,” was described as a favorite game of young boys. In it two opponents stand opposite each other with... Read More →