Audrey Kathleen Ruston, who died thirty years ago this month, was born on May 4, 1929 in Brussels, Belgium, the daughter of a member of minor Dutch nobility and a peripatetic English financier father who later changed his name to the double-barrelled “Hepburn-Ruston” to show his connection (probably imagined) to one of the husbands of… Continue reading Ab-so-bloomin-lutely Loverly: Audrey Hepburn
Month: January 2023
Quote of the Day: “Precious Bodily Fluids”
https://youtu.be/N1KvgtEnABY Brigadier-General Ripper actually had a few intelligent things to say on other matters. But what he's most remembered for are his very essential, obsessive, lunatical, misogynistic, rantings. Sad. But funny. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, premiered 59 years ago today, on January 29, 1964.
Semper Fi! Dog Tracker Extraordinaire
In a recent post, I expressed my dissatisfaction with the "Whistle" GPS pet trackers I've had on the collars of my Great Pyrenees dogs now for about a decade. When Whistle and I started out on our journey together, it was a wonderful product. It did exactly what I wanted it to do: That is… Continue reading Semper Fi! Dog Tracker Extraordinaire
Space Shuttle OV-999: Slipping the Surly Bonds of Earth
It's one of those "I'll never forget where I was, when...." moments. I was in Pittsburgh, on the second floor of one of the hi-rise office buildings in Gateway Center, in the second year of my reasonably successful career as a salesman in the fledging personal computer market. The generally unpleasant person in the next… Continue reading Space Shuttle OV-999: Slipping the Surly Bonds of Earth
It’s Still Good Advice From ‘The Moderator’
Finding myself wakeful in the middle of the night, I listened for a second time to an excellent discussion--which was brought to my attention on a Ricochet post from a few days ago--between Jordan Peterson and Victor Davis Hanson. It's an erudite (I would expect nothing less) romp through both mens' minds when it comes… Continue reading It’s Still Good Advice From ‘The Moderator’
“Living the Dream”
I don't know about you, but I rarely hear anyone using the phrase "living the dream" other than sarcastically, or to indicate that he or she is doing anything but. It may have originated, somewhere in the latter-half of the twentieth century to mean that it was possible, in these United States, to become, or… Continue reading “Living the Dream”
The Bard of the Yukon: Celebrating Robert W. Service
There are some things that, when they erupt in my life, catapult me instantly back in time, or elsewhere in place or company. Certain smells, and I’m in Granny’s kitchen five or six decades ago. Or, it’s the early 1970s, and I’m cleaning fish on Court Brothers’ wharf in Rustico Harbour, PEI. Or perhaps I’m… Continue reading The Bard of the Yukon: Celebrating Robert W. Service
Burns Supper Night: 2023
O wad some Pow'r the giftie gie us To see oursels as ithers see us! It wad frae mony a blunder free us, An' foolish notion Ah! The sainted Rabbie Burns. Scotland's national poet. Romantic to the end. Socialist. Raconteur. A man who dropped his seed wherever he felt like it, upon whichever woman struck… Continue reading Burns Supper Night: 2023
QOTD: “The House of Delusions,” Take Two
The house of delusions is cheap to build but drafty to live in, and ready at any instant to fall--A.E. Houseman The last time I wrote a post on this quote from one of my favorite poets, was in August of 2021. It was on a completely different subject, but I ended it thus: Sometimes,… Continue reading QOTD: “The House of Delusions,” Take Two
Happy Birthday, Lord Byron!
You're not one of my favorite poets. Too fraught, too crazy, too "Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know." as one of your lovers described you and as I've written about elsewhere. I've never really gone for that sort of thing myself. More interested in the thought that "I can be myself with you," than that… Continue reading Happy Birthday, Lord Byron!