Some of you will be cheering for the Giants this evening, others the Patriots (around here it’s Patriots or nothing, except when it’s Red Sox or Bruins). You may find yourselves cheering opposite teams in front of the same flat-screen TV (from opposite sides of the living room) because New York and New England overlap [...]
Archive for the ‘Literature’ Category
Super Bowl XLVI
Posted in Hemingway, Humor, Literature on February 5, 2012 | 4 Comments »
Chance or the dance?
Posted in Literature, Religion on May 18, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
Physicist and cosmologist Stephen Hawking has made great contributions to our understanding of science and has been a great example of courage in overcoming a handicap. But, like Carl Sagan, he sometimes violates principles of good science and makes unverifiable claims. In a recent interview with The Guardian, Dr. Hawking has claimed the non-existence of Heaven: “I [...]
National Library Week, part II: the dark medieval origins
Posted in Humor, Literature on April 12, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
From offshore to the blogosphere: one year on
Posted in Literature, Maritime, Poetry, Religion on April 11, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
It’s been one year today. One hundred thirty-one posts, no death threats (but no job offers either), not too much spam, an encouraging number of hits (6300, with the daily average climbing) and just enough positive feedback to fool me into thinking I’m not wasting my time. So far so good. My first blogpost, Dylan Thomas’s poem [...]
National Library Week, part I: the conspiracy to indoctrinate
Posted in Cartoons, Humor, Literature, Local on April 10, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
But seriously… support your local library and tell Cindy how much you appreciate her.
Hemingway Fix #4: The End of Something
Posted in Hemingway, Literature on February 1, 2011 | 4 Comments »
She loved to fish. She loved to fish with Nick.” Ernest Hemingway wrote that line as the epitaph to a love affair. The story hinges on it. And the following line nearly became the epitaph to this blog post: “Dad! You’ve got to blog about something besides Hemingway!” Daughter Number One caught me doing an [...]
Semester abroad
Posted in Italy, Literature, Local, Poetry, Religion, Visual art on January 21, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
It’s official. After a paperwork mixup, Daughter Number Three finally made it to Italy, the first of our family since her great-grandparents emigrated from there a hundred years ago. We hadn’t heard from her since Tuesday after she cleared airport security in Boston. But, unless she had been wandering around the airport like Tom Hanks in [...]
Still time to skate away…
Posted in Joni Mitchell, Literature, Music, Poetry, Religion on December 19, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
If you’ve had enough of the commercialism already, and with Christmas yet a week away, be assured that you’re not the only one. Try to keep your cool. Keep it simple. Sing traditional carols with family and friends. Eat some chocolate, pour whipped cream with cinnamon into your fair-trade coffee, and read the nativity stories [...]
A very relaxing hurricane
Posted in Literature, Local, Maritime, Religion, Visual art on September 5, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
It’s not that Hurricane Earl was a blessing in disguise; it was just plainly and simply a blessing (at least on this side of the Bay of Fundy). I don’t know how much damage Earl did in Puerto Rico; I suspect mostly rain. As for the Outer Banks and Cape Hatteras, well, I haven’t [...]
Irony as humor, the sequel
Posted in Cartoons, Humor, Literature on August 19, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
There. I got that out of my system. Special thanks to www.addletters.com
No cihld left behind
Posted in Humor, Literature on August 11, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
At last! Comic relief for those of us on a school board. From HuffingtonPost.com: When Southern Guilford High School in North Carolina asked contractors to paint a safety zone on the road in front of the school, chances are they weren’t expecting this. Perhaps the painters should have referenced one of the school’s many English [...]
Hemingway fix #3: Hills Like White Elephants
Posted in Hemingway, Literature, Visual art on August 1, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
The hills across the valley of the Ebro were long and white. On this side there was no shade and no trees and the station was between two lines of rails in the sun. Close against the side of the station there was the warm shadow of the building and a curtain, made of strings of bamboo [...]
Not What, But Whom
Posted in Literature, Poetry, Religion, Visual art on July 28, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
One of the blogsurfing finds lately (iMonk) has been a poem by John Oxenham entitled “Credo”. This followed a discussion about the Culture Wars that got only a little off-topic. Here is a bit of the discussion, edited: [someone named Steve said]: “…I should know – I used to be that person. I was more [...]
Happy Birthday, Ashley!
Posted in Literature, Local, Poetry, Visual art on July 12, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
My People by Langston Hughes The night is beautiful, So the faces of my people. The stars are beautiful, So the eyes of my people. Beautiful, also, is the sun. Beautiful, also, are the souls of my people. Things by Eloise Greenfield Went to the corner [...]
Hemingway Fix #2: In Another Country
Posted in Hemingway, Literature on July 9, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
In the fall the war was always there, but we did not go to it anymore.’’ So begins Hemingway’s short story In Another Country. In many of his stories we see a story within. Here we have a snapshot of two patients in a military hospital in Milan during World War I. An American officer, [...]
