Due to pressure over many years from people of Italian descent, in 1968 Lyndon Johnson signed legislation to make Columbus Day a federal holiday effective in 1971. The traditional date for Columbus Day was October 12, but in order to keep federal holidays as part of a long weekend, the date is now observed on … Continue reading Indigenous Peoples’ Day
Books
Jeffrey Archer
You may have heard that Jeffrey Archer died recently. He did not live the most, uh, honourable of lives, if I may so put it. You can probably tell that just by looking at him. He was a Conservative Member of Parliament from 1969 to 1974, but after almost going bankrupt he turned to writing, … Continue reading Jeffrey Archer
Your Song
One of our frequent visitors at our Southgate townhouse was Denny, the Vietnam vet from Lewistown that we had gotten to know in Mifflin Hall who was in his late 20s but looked 40. Denny was still rooming with Ken, the fundamentalist Christian, on the fifth floor of Mifflin Hall. I don’t know if he … Continue reading Your Song
John and Elia and Florence and Zoe
In 1952 John Steinbeck published his novel East of Eden, which became a huge bestseller, although critics were rather lukewarm on it. Then again, who cares what critics think? It’s a massive novel describing two families over multi-generations beginning during the Civil War, going through the end of the first World War, and with echos of … Continue reading John and Elia and Florence and Zoe
Dilemmas, Diets, and Dick
Here are some recommendations for podcasts and videos that have lately become available. First up is a recent episode of Wanging On with Graham Norton and Maria McErlane. Graham has an anecdote about his first show on the BBC being interrupted when the pope died, and then he and Maria field dilemmas from a mother who … Continue reading Dilemmas, Diets, and Dick
Every Day a Little Death
I bought this book last year and I realized that I never wrote about it. It’s an anthology of short crime stories, each one of which is related in some way to a Stephen Sondheim song. But not simply related to a song, most of the stories are filled with sly and not so sly … Continue reading Every Day a Little Death
Book Recommendations Galore
In Saturday’s Q&A at E-V.com there were several questions about books and the answers returned a wealth of book recommendations. Here they are. Please note that I have not altered the book links which take you to Amazon without any accompanying associate ID, so nobody earns a fee if you end up buying any of … Continue reading Book Recommendations Galore
November 3, 1956
In November 1956 we were living in the Great Stone House on my grandparents’ farm just outside Womelsdorf, Pennsylvania, but as my mother had been brought up in Richland and my father on a farm just outside Richland, and my mother’s parents still lived in Richland, we visited that borough frequently. On November 3 Richland's … Continue reading November 3, 1956
Where’s Norman?
Here’s an excerpt from Geoff Emerick’s book, Here, There and Everywhere: My Life Recording the Music of the Beatles, where he talks about replacing their longtime sound engineer Norman Smith, who had left to produce Pink Floyd. Emerick was only eighteen years old at the time and was apprehensive that the Fab Four might not … Continue reading Where’s Norman?
Newton’s Apple
One of Apple’s most famous bombs was the Newton. Released to much hype, it simply didn’t live up to its expectations. It was able to recognize one’s handwriting, whether one wrote on it with printed block lettering or cursive, but it did this by comparing what you wrote to a list of 10,000 words stored … Continue reading Newton’s Apple