All Purls. No Swine.
Whoops. I missed it. Yesterday, November 29, 2024 was the 126th birthday of one of my favorite writers in all of recorded history, Clive Staples (Jack) Lewis. I've written about him often, even when it wasn't his birthday, but today I'm going to do a bit of a rehash of a post from a few… Continue reading Quote of the Day: “To Love is to be Vulnerable”
...on November 18, 1978, I was sitting in the little snack bar in the base station of New Hampshire’s Mount Washington (a short mountain, comparatively speaking, but one which has its own set of challenges for climbers), prior to setting out on an expedition with the late Mr. Right, “when our love was young,” as… Continue reading 46 Years Ago Today, in Jonestown, Guyana….
Thanks, Hippocrates. I've not made any secret, over the years, of the fact that I love Thai food. Or of the marvelous opportunity--over six years ago now--that I enjoyed an actual cooking class in actual Thailand. But I sometimes suffer the consequences of living in the northeastern United States, far away from some of those… Continue reading Thai Basil Hack: “Desperate Times…”
Mitzi Gaynor, star of stage and screen for over seventy years, died today at the age of 93. She's an inextricable part of my childhood, and the female lead in the first movie I ever saw. Here's a reflection from a couple of years ago: I saw my first movie, ever, in the UK, when… Continue reading “Get a Load of Honeybun Tonight!” Rest in Peace, Mitzi Gaynor.
Apologies to A.A. Milne: But now I’m six, I'm as clever as clever. So I think I'll be six now, forever and ever! I guess this was really just the sixty-fourth anniversary of my turning six. (For God's sake, check the math; it was never my strong point). And I'm deliriously happy with the result. … Continue reading Now I Am Seventy
210 years ago today, when the flag of the still relatively-young republic had only fifteen stars, on September 14, 1814, an American lawyer by the name of Francis Scott Key published a poem he'd written upon witnessing the bombardment of Baltimore's Fort McHenry by the British Royal Navy during the War of 1812. The poem… Continue reading The Defense of Fort McHenry: For the World
A slightly spruced-up post from past days: August 26, 2024, is the 149th anniversary of the birth of John Buchan. Born in Perth in 1875, the son of a Free Church of Scotland minister and his wife, Buchan attended the University of Glasgow as a scholarship student, then moving on to Oxford where--according to Wikipedia… Continue reading Celebrating John Buchan
Few American writers of the twentieth century so embody the quotably pungent and pithy in their prose as does Dorothy Rothschild Parker. Google her name, and her often caustic, witty, gems just tumble out at you: -"The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity." –"If you want to know what God… Continue reading Quote of the Day: The Pithiest Book Review Ever
Well, that's not quite right. But perhaps "close enough for gubmint work," as they say. Two-hundred seventy-nine years ago today, Prince Charles Edward Louis John Sylvester Maria Casimir Stuart raised his standard (and his pretension to the British throne) in the Lochaber district of Glenfinnan in the Scottish Highlands. "The Young Pretender." Also known as… Continue reading “Oh-Hoh Yes: I’m the Young Pretender”
Ah, the bad old days, when the redoubtable and toxically masculine men of the new United States of America would bundle their wimmens, children, and livestock into, in front of, and behind, a Conestoga wagon along with a few possessions and necessities and--heedless of the danger--head off into "Indian Territory," also known as "The West."… Continue reading Batwoman vs Sarah Sturdyskirt