Category: Writing

Posted on

Je Suis Candide

Charlie Hebdo Magazine killings in Paris. Lamenting those who carried the enlightened torch of Voltaire. Satire. Free speech. Pens drawn against guns of disaffected disillusioned men disguised in the guise of religion. Boredom begets indoctrination in absurdities as a rationale to commit atrocities. Another BrothersTsarnaev scenario. As Pope Francis says, jobs will obliterate these faux jihads. Economics drives our new Gang World.

On a more mundane note. 20 years since Starbucks served its first Frappuccino.

Posted on

Worst 2014

Rape of the leaves. Construction next door.
Sochi Olympics. Return of Putin.
Crying Wolfowitz. Right-wing and media fear-mongering.
ISIS. GangWorld.
Ebola. E-bowling.
Malaysia missing airplane obsession.
Ferguson media hype.
Commencement Speech bigots.
Football violence on and off the field.
TV’s Newsroom. Veep.
“Cute cat” videos.
Construction next door.

 

Posted on

2014

GOOD

mAdBen & Neil deGrasse Tyson at CannesLions. 10383719_841943909179198_4846207022091497883_o-2

Parts Unknown. Bourdain in Massachusetts.
MadMen7. Bobby Morse’s dancing exit.
Of Mice and Men O’Dowd Franco
Realistic Joneses. Letts Collette Hall Tomei
Sushi Nakazawa
Eleven Madison Park

BAD

Rape of the leaves. Construction next door.
Sochi Olympics. Return of Putin.
Crying Wolfowitz. Right-wing and media fear-mongering.
Ebola.

Posted on

Women’s Fib

Women’s Lib. Coinage of the day circa 1970. Misandry replaced romance. Friedan. Steinem. Started a political movement. The fib. That women could have it all. Work-life balance morphed into a myth. Recent Harvard Business School study says it’s not kids but husbands who determine a woman’s climb up the career ladder. Today’s Supreme Court considers whether pregnancy merits the same benefits as a disability in corporate terms, the UPS case.

Before the Libbers, Helen Gurley Brown maybe had it right. A woman who chose a sexy single life. Starting as a secretary at Foote Cone & Belding ad agency, she rose to the top of the publishing world. Brooke Hauser’s upcoming book, Enter Helen has already been optioned to be made into a movie prior to the book’s 2015 debut.

Just finished Sarah Waters’ The Paying Guests. 2014 feminist lit. Post-WWI England when all the good men had been lost and women had to find solace in each other. Makes one wonder. Have women come full circle back to spinning their domestic wheels? What will millennials do.

Posted on

Gladwell v. Gladiators

Author Malcolm Gladwell calls American Football a moral abomination. Likening it at one point to dogfighting. More like modern Gladiators. Armed combatants fighting to the delight of huge arena crowds. In Football, arms are the arms. Larger bodies, muscles, enhanced artificially as well as physical drive. Defensive ends gain speed and brute brawn. Hits are becoming close to lethal.

Universities pay football coaches far more than professors. Stadiums continue to be funded by alums in staggering amounts. Behavior of players has deteriorated more with each year on and off the field. Cloistered, covert, cult of silence surrounds these transgressions. College courses for hallowed warriors unattended with no grades. And then there are the Pro’s. Gladwell v. Goodell.

As a lover of the game, it’s getting scarier and more difficult to watch. Plus. Niners v. Giants today. Which to root for? A safe game.

Posted on

This Old Neighbor ReView

photo-45Norm, Richard, and Roger gone. Dirt guy revving his Mack truck on Sunday mornings, too. Gallons of gas and oil expended. Fake siding sawing fumes cleared. Air quality improved. Porta potty departed. Red trash bin lifted out. Shaking. Banging. Clanging. Crashing. Stopped. After nine-month gestation, monster machines delivered. Writing can resume. Sanity restored. Sorta. photo-48

 

Posted on

Parts Known

Back to CNN’s Parts Unknown. Anthony Bourdain this week brings us to Massachusetts. Assumed it would focus on Boston dining scene. Wrong! After taking us to his beginnings in Provincetown, land’s end of Cape Cod, he reveals that’s where his heroin addiction began. From there, he comes here. To Western Massachusetts. Route 91 North to SideTrekFalls. And Greenfield.

Heroin has been epidemic in these parts for decades. My former “facialist” first clued me in to the problem in Northampton in the late ’90’s. Kids of clients dead. From smack. It has only gotten worse as the economy declined. And when hometown sports heroes get injured, need surgery, they get hooked on oxy’s. Yup. Doctors as dealers.

Behind our red barns, beyond our fertile meadows, under our bridges of flowers. What you don’t see is a sorry scene. Bourdain is a brilliant journalist. cropped-shelburne-falls-18_3_21-2

Posted on

Recovered Scraps

Parts Unknown this season resurrects America’s wasted past. Bourdain’s recent tour to Vietnam was hard to watch. Reminded how many contemporaries lost so much there. As did they. Why? In Iran this week, Anthony was able to get a rare glimpse of attractive, modern, vibrant families at sumptuous if vigilant tables. Where a mystery action can render a journalist couple jailed. It also shone the light on how U.S. sanctions and old transgressions deeply affect everyday life.

Election over. Can we stop talking about gender and race, now. Please. And focus on competence and governing. What? I woke up from my nap. Nevermind.

Posted on

Skippy Hollow As Always

Ichabod Crane. Dark knights. Must be that time of year again. Achieved a pumpkin-free zone. No gourds, dried stalks or Indian corn either. Okay. Cheap candy for kids. Trick or treat. All Hallow’s Eve. Once. Not an entire week.

Orange is the old black. I’ll be the usual. Rhymes with witch. Yeah. I rehearse all year. So. Just no. Crinkly Hillary cleavage. Ebola hazmat suits. Headless horsemen of Isis. Not too soon. Never. Make it stop. Is it Kranky Kristmas yet?