• I would have had an Uncle Harold except that he died when he was 6 years old. This was in 1936. My mom’s mother, my Grandma Steib, said that he had the sweetest little smile. What happened was that Harold had a stomachache, so Grandma put a hot water… Continue reading
• We are, to borrow a term from statistics, regressing toward the mean—by which I mean that this Atlantean Golden Age of the West, our postwar height, especially in the United States, is collapsing upon itself, retracting, so that the few sit above the many and the many are illiterate… Continue reading
• Any movie with Vincent Price in it. (And why can’t we have knighthood for artists of this caliber in the United States?) •Also, any movie with Peter Cushing in it. He was never so honored, either, during his career. • Christopher Lee, however, was. • I still have the… Continue reading
So this morning with my first cup of coffee I caught the end of CBS’s Sunday Morning news magazine and learned about how the public library in Brooklyn has set up a way for people who want to be fashion designers can get their start. Most, but not all, are… Continue reading
So I just came back in from cutting half the back yard, where the grass (thin as it grows) is very tall. I let it go weekend after weekend because I have been putting in time doing freelance editing, reviewing stories to include in Close Thrones and Arcane Arts (which… Continue reading
The most important question was determining why I was losing blood and how. I had an early colonoscopy (I wasn’t due for one for another year) done by my gastroenterologist. No sign of bleeding in the gut; no sign that bleeding could be because of my hiatal hernia. The oncologist… Continue reading
Doctors began arriving late Saturday morning. The attending introduced himself. We discussed what the problem could be and the procedures he wished me to undergo. The immediate problem was that my hemoglobin count was down to 3.8 g/dL. For men, it should be at 13 or 14. If it could… Continue reading
So Friday evening, December first, about ten-thirty at night, I asked my wife, Janine, to call for an ambulance. I could barely breathe. I had been barely breathing for days; for weeks, I had found it difficult to take in a breath when I did something as simple as stand… Continue reading
So I just found this great article in Get Pocket, which shows up on my desktop as soon as I turn on my computer. An oral history of the making of My Cousin Vinny, which is basically a B picture but so well written and so well acted that it… Continue reading
Few Will Understand, and of Those Who Do, Fewer Still Will Speak of It I’m not sure what that means, but it has a ring to it, same as So Let It Be Written, So Let It Be Done. For years I couldn’t remember where I’d heard or read that…. Continue reading
