The anti-Masonic roots of the Republican party
I suppose the big anniversary event of the coming new year is the semi-quincentennial of the American Revolution. I’m all…
Has Los Angeles killed America’s imagination?
The magnificent Griffith Park Observatory turned 90 this year and, as fans of nonagenarians, my wife and I hiked up…
A Neil Young concert in the waning days of summer
By the time we got to Woodstock… actually, we never got to Woodstock. Bethel, the town in which the fabled…
Thoughts on moving houses
“A house for sale is not a home,” says Wendell Berry, which is perhaps why we have delayed putting our…
It’s a frustrating time to be a college football fan
Another pigskin season kicks off, and despite the multitudinous sins committed against the game and its culture by ESPN, university…
The Erie Canal at 200
I’ve got a mule, her name is Sal Fifteen miles on the Erie Canal She’s a good old worker and…
Remembering Jackson C. Frank
Before venturing to the North Park Theatre in Buffalo to catch a one-night-only showing of Blues Run the Game: The…
The dog that haunts Russ Benzin
Batavia, New York Fifty-five years after his Vietnam-era military service ended, Russ Benzin remains haunted. Not, thank God, by memories…
Asteroid 2024 YR4 and the geekoisie
“Giant Asteroid” has been a popular also-ran in the last three presidential elections, at least judging from bumper stickers, and…
With reference to
“You spend your life waiting for a moment that just don’t come,” sang Bruce Springsteen many moments ago. But sometimes…
On embracing the winter years
Batavia, New York I sit in hospice at the bedside of my beloved Aunt Jane — who never let us…
A matter of presidents
Virginia spawned four of the first five US presidents. Between Reconstruction and the roaring twenties, Ohio’s executive fecundity earned it…
Back to 1984 with Robert Dean Lurie
Robert Dean Lurie, who had written very good books on worthy rock music subjects (REM, David Bowie and the Church),…
How one bad scene can ruin an otherwise great movie
Can one egregiously bad scene ruin an otherwise great movie? When I go on an early 1970s jag — revisiting…
The awesome Alan Pell Crawford
The great nineteenth-century novelist Harold Frederic (The Damnation of Theron Ware) had a character complain “I cannot read or listen to…
Gazing at the eclipse in Walt Whitman’s perfect silence
The day before the April 8 eclipse — our postage stamp of ground sat smack dab in the middle of…
The story of Vince Maney
Batavia, New York ‘Tis spring, and if a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love, as Tennyson opined,…
My biggest regrets
Regrets, I’ve had a few, but unlike Mr. “My Way,” mine are enough to mention. (Didn’t Hoboken Frank at least…
An introduction to presidential grave-hunting
Where better to talk about dead presidents than over beer and wings at Jim’s Saloon in East Pembroke, New York,…
Remembering George Eastman
George Eastman, founder of Eastman Kodak and benefactor of Rochester, New York, told my late friend Henry Clune (1890-1995 —…
Remembering John Gardner
“Art begins in a wound, an imperfection,” said the late novelist John Gardner, one of the last American writers to…
Roque is alive and well in Angelica, New York
Goose-pulling is dead and gone, and lawn darts are on life support, but roque is alive and well and avoiding…
Summering in Scranton
Our big adventure this summer was supposed to be a trip to the Capri for a young friend’s wedding, but…
Rage against the baseball machine
In a lifetime of attending perhaps a thousand professional baseball games, all but ten or so in the minor leagues…
How the NCAA twisted women’s sports
This has been a banner, or perhaps baneful, year for women’s intercollegiate sports, what with trash-talking basketballers, record TV ratings…
