All Purls. No Swine.
From my own point of view, it's expansive. And I hope that's actually the real point of its intentions.. I add a link to each post here on my Twitter account. And my dozens of Twitter followers open it. Thank you! (I do wish such a thing was automatic, as it used to be. But… Continue reading What–Exactly–Is the Purpose of Twitter/X?
Funny, sometimes, how the mind works. Today’s Telegraph has an obituary for figure skater Sjoukje Dijkstra, who has died at the age of 82. It’s a name that–today–will likely trip lightly off the tongues only of those native to Holland, but I’m a geezer, and I know that it’s pronounced something on the order of “SHOU-kee DIKE-stra.” Miss… Continue reading Sjoukje Dijkstra, RIP
A reprise, in large part, of a previous post, updated with more recent concerns, the most immediate of which has been this weekend, or even just this morning. One of my favorite childhood stories was that of The Town Mouse and The Country Mouse. There's never been any doubt in my mind which side of… Continue reading The Gift That Keeps On Giving–In Praise of Dowsers
No, I've not quite lost my mind, and I do have a calendar app on my phone. I know it's April 13, not November 5. (November 5 this year will be doubly memorable, as it's the date of the 2024 US Presidential election.) What today actually is, though, is the likely birthday, four-hundred fifty-four years… Continue reading Remembering Guy Fawkes
I saw my first movie ever in the UK, when I was five years old. it was 1959, and Dad was on leave from Nigeria. We were living in the family home in Droitwich, and Granny, Mum, and I went to Birmingham's West End Cinema to see a much-celebrated American import. Those were the days… Continue reading There is Nothing Like a Dame: 75 Years Later
On April 4, 1818, the Congress of the United States adopted a new national flag which consisted of thirteen alternating red and white stripes (one for each original colony), and--at the flag's upper left--a field of blue with a star representing each state. (There twenty of them at the time. Now there are fifty.) The… Continue reading Happy Birthday, Old Glory!
My maternal Great Granny was a fearsome old bat. She was born in 1869, just four short years after the US Civil War ended and (only five days subsequently) Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. She died a few months before Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. What a lifespan. I was fourteen when she died, and… Continue reading Easter 2024: On Silk Purses, Sow’s Ears, and Horse’s Asses
https://youtu.be/akb0kD7EHIk (See here for the story of this video.)
A man who is often dubbed "America's favorite poet," Robert Lee Frost, was born 150 years ago today, on March 26, 1874.* Those who've stuck with me for a bit may know that modern American poetry isn't really my wheelhouse, but Robert Frost has some merit, never more so than with his poem, "The Road… Continue reading Plain Speaking: Robert Frost
A lightly-edited post from several years ago, in honor (or despight) of Jack Kerouac's 101st birthday today. My contempt for the man--and everything he represents--hasn't changed. What a rotten, deranged, misogynistic bastard. Unfortunately, and increasingly, it seems that--these days--there are those who find such people inspiring and worthy of emulation. Particularly on social media. But… Continue reading On Household Relations and the Natural Order of Things, 2024 Edition