One should always take the opportunity to associate oneself with the Marx Brothers. Yesterday Ginny and Cara and I went to Belmont Park in Queens for a day of races capped off by the Belmont Stakes. It was fetid afternoon in the metropolitan apple, but sitting in the lower grandstand, under the overhang, we enjoyed …
I had the good fortune to spend three days last week with friends Jim and Lisa at the oceanfront condo at Cocoa Beach in Florida, talking politics and watching playoff basketball (tough, exciting wins by eventual losers Magic and Suns) and contemplating the vista presented here. Hot and humid all day; ocean breezes, such as …
We have been quite worried about our old dog Vicki. For the last couple of weeks, she has been limping, a hobble that just showed up after a long and pleasant walk in the woods. No big deal, we’ve been thinking, and it would show signs of lessening, and then she would bound off the …
I had a delightful time yesterday meeting with McCracken Poston, a lawyer and former state legislator from Georgia who told me a warm and delightful story about, of all things, a murder case he tried a decade ago. He and I are going to work to try to turn it into a book. McCracken and …
Ginny and I spent a pleasant hour Monday night watching the HBO documentary about the Philadelphia Flyers of the mid-seventies, the famous Broad Street Bullies, whose adventures Ginny and I much enjoyed. Indeed, some of the footage was a little like seeing home movies. The famous fog game in the Cup Finals in 1975? That …
At about 2:30 this afternoon, an out-of-control panel truck full of bottles of juice rear-ended a Briarcliff school bus at the intersection of Route 100 and Chappaqua Road, about a mile from the house. Thankfully, it seems no one was badly hurt. I took these pictures. Later I sent the to The Gazette. We’ll see …
Headed down to DC yesterday to meet Cliff Etheredge, the rattlesnake-hunting, poetry-writing, one-armed Texas wind magnate whom I am privileged to be assisting on a memoir he is writing. Over a very fine lunch of lalibera rib and yesom wot at the Lalibela Ethiopian Restaurant on 14th Street (first time with that cuisine for either …
The highlight of early 2010, namely the class I taught at Marymount Manhattan College, came to an end Thursday night. Called “Writing in a New environment,” we explored blogging, tweeting, and the many changes digital technology has foisted on the word industry. I was joined by a group of students that was small but curious …
Most of the obituaries of Fess Parker, the actor who famously portrayed Davy Crockett on television in the fifties and who died yesterday, placed him at the center of genuine coonskin fad, part of the crazy quilt of crazes of that period that included Elvis, hula hoops, drive-ins and that made up pop culture during …
I had an amazing reception to my recent post about my uncle, Andy Malanowski. I heard from many of my cousins, which was wonderful, notably Dave Powell, the husband of my cousin Christine Malanowski Powell. He has constructed an impressive Powell family tree which by his good grace (or maybe it’s the grace of Chris) …