Posted Thursday night, September 20, 2018. Barry Cohen, the hedge fund manager who’s the main character of Gary Shtenytgart’s new novel “Lake Success” , has had a screaming fight with his normally even-tempered, cool-headed wife… Barry recoiled. This was exactly how he pictured his banker buddies’ marriages, ungrateful women screaming at stupefied men over absolutely nothing. Once, when he was still huffing his way up the VP-MD axis at Goldman, he had gone to a party at Greenwich manse, and the architect who had designed the house was there on the veranda completely shit-faced. Barry asked him the secret of... Continue reading

Posted Wednesday morning, September 19, 2018. A stageful of seventeen year old young adult men, including the author (far right), in our high school production of “Taming of the Shrew” back in the day. [Act II, Scene I. I played Biondello, in case you want to look it up.] More from the Department of Ideas in Search of a Post: At seventeen you’re not legally a full-fledged adult. The law doesn’t grant you all the rights, privileges, and liberties granted as a matter of course to adults over the age of twenty-one. But you can still do just about everything... Continue reading

Posted Tuesday morning, September 18, 2018. Supreme Court Nominee Brett Kavanaugh at his confirmation hearing. Photo by T.J. Kirkpatrick, courtesy of the New York Times. From the Department of Ideas in Search of a Post: Should a stupid thing you did when you were seventeen cost you a job when you’re fifty-three? Many people reflexively answer that one with, “No. Doing at least one stupid thing is part of your daily routine when you’re seventeen.” That’s why Kavanaugh’s excuse-makers want that to be the question. But that question fudges the real question. What if the job is Supreme Court Justice... Continue reading

Mined from the notebooks, Thursday, September 13, 2018. Posted Friday morning, September 14. Still don’t like the guy, but Andrew’s showed himself to be pretty good governor-ing: “Governor Andrew Cuomo walking with FDNY Assistant Cheif Joseph Pfeifer through the Breezy Point neighborhood destroyed by Hurricane Sandy.” Photo byJulia Xanthos/New York Daily News, 2012. [Editor’s note: This post is desperately in need of an update, and I’m working on it.] Primary day here in New York. Republicans are fighting over some state assembly and senate seats. I haven’t heard that any one in particular of those fights truly matter to anyone... Continue reading

Tuesday. 12;07 p.m. 67 degrees. On Route 9, heading south, taking Mrs M to her appointment with her surgeon in Westchester. Low hanging mist chopping the tops off the wooded hills to the west. Last time I made this trip was June 5. Three months and six days. Seems like no more than a week ago. Then there were still flowers on the locusts and ash trees. Today there’s yellow in the birches and poplars, rust in the maples. _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Photo "Autumn birch" by James Jordan, courtesy of Mecklenburgh Square Garden. Continue reading

Posted Wednesday night, September 12, 2018. Continue reading

Posted Wednesday night, September 12, 2018. Continue reading

Posted Tuesday morning, September 11, 2018. What’s the matter with these ingrates? Don’t they know they’re supposed to entertain the fans not guilt-trip them? Then San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick (right) and teammate Erick Reid kneel during the national anthem at a game in 2016. Photo by Marcio Jose Sanchez via the New York Times. Violating one of my own Twitter basics here, letting a couple of random Tweets in my Timeline represent more than a couple of random Tweets in my Timeline, but going by random Tweets in my Timeline, it appears that a tent pole of the... Continue reading

Alaskan Way, Seattle Waterfront, Saturday evening about eight Pacific Time, eleven o’clock our time, Eastern Time. August 31, 2018. Taken by our friend, former colleague, activist, and blogger Bill Peace. Posted Sunday morning, September 9, 2018. Copyright Wiliam J. Peace. 2018. Continue reading

Mined from the notebooks, August 28, 2018. Posted Friday night, September 7, 2018. President Jimmy Carter and Panamanian dictator General Omar Torrijos at the signing of the Panama Canal treaties, September 7, 1977. Photo courtesy of the Jimmy Carter Library via Wikipedia. “The next phase of negotiations will pose a major test for Trump’s unique style of diplomacy, which has shown flashes of both creativity and impulsiveness throughout the process.” ---from the Washington Post, “Trump announces separate U.S.-Mexico trade agreement, says Canada may join later”, August 27, 2018. Flashes of creativity and impulsiveness is a good description of a toddler... Continue reading

Posted Thursday night, September 6, 2018. Well, there it is. No car. Temporary situation and I should have it taken care of by Monday. But it'll cost about $200 to fix it and as always we don't have the money. (Our financial situation will improve but it's taking more time and paperwork than I'd hoped.) So, once again I'm sorry to ask, but if 20 of you can spare us $10, that will really help us out of this jam. Please follow the link or click on the button below. Thanks to everyone who has helped us out in the... Continue reading

Wednesday. 6:22 a.m. 66 degrees. Out on the porch. Sun up but sky clouded over. Pale gray. Thing patch of fog in the air I can see only against the background of the far, large maple just beyond our neighbor’s fence at the corner of her driveway across the street. The dawn chorus right now is a frenzy of crickets or peepers---can never tell---humming and chirping allegro. Only bird singing yet is a mourning dove somewhere behind our house cooing sorrowfully in counterpoint, the heartbroken call of woe that gives mourning doves their name. And I’m thinking, “You and me... Continue reading

Mined from the notebooks, Friday night, August 10. Posted Tuesday night, September 4. “Boston Red Sox's Xander Bogaerts watches his three-run home run in the first inning of a baseball game against the Baltimore Orioles, Friday, Aug. 10, 2018, in Baltimore.” AP Photo/Patrick Semansky via Valley News. Ah well. Had to catch up with me sooner or later... Pop Mannion was a night owl and I long ago got in the habit of calling him late in the evening, knowing he'd still be up and we'd exchange the news of the day and talk about whatever games had just ended.... Continue reading

Mined from the notebooks, midnight Sunday, August 19, 2018. Posted Tuesday morning, September 4. Seven minutes after midnight. The diabetes police are asleep. I am this close to sneaking out of the house and off to Denny's for a slice of cherry pie. The only thing stopping me is a voice inside my head saying, "DENNY'S? With all the great diners in the area, you want to go to DENNY'S?" Continue reading

Mined from the notebooks. Posted Tuesday morning, September 4. Wednesday. 7:48 a.m. 61 degrees. It's a little chilly out here on the porch where I'm sitting having my coffee. This sounds like banal news but let's unpack it. 1. It's a chilly morning. 61 degrees. No humidity. Sunny. Cloudless sky. 2. I'm outside but not doing yard work! I'm having my coffee out on the porch. These two conditions have not occurred simultaneously since APRIL! Continue reading

Imagine having no one you can trust or rely on except Donald Trump. Now imagine you're Donald Trump. Mined from the notebooks August 23, 2018, and distilled from a dozen past posts. Posted Sunday morning, September 2. He knows. Of course he knows. But he doesn’t know. He doesn’t know what he did wrong. He knows he did something wrong or, at any rate, he knows he did something other people think is wrong. He doesn’t care that whatever he did was wrong. He doesn’t care about questions of right and wrong. What he doesn’t know is why those other... Continue reading

Mined from the notebooks, Saturday morning, August 25, 2018. Posted Saturday morning, September 1. Settling the question which is the better cartoon: ‘'”Despicable Me 3” or “Thor: Ragnarock”. What do mean, you didn't know that was a question? Of course it's question! Chris Hemsworth and Mark Ruffalo as cartoon versions of Thor and the Incredible Hulk in the live-action cartoon “Thor: Ragnarock”. Yes, Hemsworth’s playing a cartoon. He’s just doing it without benefit of CGI. Ruffalo does the same when he plays the Hulk’s human alter-ego, Bruce Banner. “Despicable Me 3” is a much better cartoon than “Thor: Ragnarock”. I... Continue reading

Posted Friday morning, August 31, 2018. While she heals, Mrs M's brain sometimes takes her on unexpected but interesting journeys. For instance, this morning we moved to France... Our new neighborhood. The move arranged by Mrs M’s “loose brain”: Cafe and street scene in Paris’ Latin Quarter. Photo by Jacques Lebar, courtesy of the Paris Tourist Office via Paris Attitude. Mrs M's brain is loose again this morning. “My brain is loose” is Mrs M's expression for when her memory's playing tricks on her and causing her to confabulate. She calls her little lapses of memory “brain hiccups.” Confabulating is... Continue reading

Posted Sanday morning, September 2, 2018. New posts below, but before scrolling down, please read... ...and you can swing it, please consider making a donation. Lots of bills due and, as regular readers know, the last six months have been especially hard here in Mannionville and we've still got a long road ahead. We could use any help you can give. So if you can, please click on the link or the button below Thanks to everyone who has helped us out in the past. Thank you all for reading the blog. If your bank offers it, you can donate... Continue reading

Mined from the notebooks, Sunday, August 19. Posted Thursday, August 30. George Orwell (tall galoot, second from right) with fellow members of the BBC’s propaganda broadcasting team during World War II. Yep. Orwell worked as a propagandist. He wasn’t happy about it. Photo courtesy of the BBC. In a move that goes to the heart of Orwell’s concerns about the modern state, the pigs begin revising their history. The fugitive Snowball is accused of not having been a hero at all, but a coward and a tool of the humans. Orwell had been mulling this tendency for years. “The peculiarity... Continue reading

Mined from the notebooks Sunday, August 26, 2018. Posted Wednesday afternoon, August 29. Heading home: “John McCain is escorted by Lt. Cmdr. Jay Coupe Jr. to Hanoi's Gia Lam Airport on March 14, 1973, after 5 1/2 years as a prisoner of war.” Photo by Horst Faas/AP via NPR. Among the cohort of hideous men who make up a considerable portion of Trump’s base are a mob of resentful mediocrities eaten up with envy of anyone they believe the world judges their moral, intellectual, and physically more talented superiors. They’re a mix of angry emotions: self-loathing because they should have... Continue reading

Mined from the notebooks and adapted from the Twitter feed, Monday morning, August 27. Posted Tuesday morning, August 28. Bryce Harper of the Washington Nationals who says he sucks at pinch hitting not sucking at pinch hitting. Sunday, August 26, 2018. Photo by Rich Schultz/AP via the Washington Post. Sunday afternoon. I’m back to watching baseball. Top half of the eighth. Nats up over the Mets, 2-0. Bases loaded, no outs. Mets reliever’s just walked in a run. Nats’ centerfielder Michael Taylor due up. But Taylor---no Bryce Harper at the best of times---hasn’t been hitting even his weight lately. Four... Continue reading

Mined from the notebooks, Friday, May 18, 2018. Posted Sunday morning, August 26. A stretch of beach in Alabama’s Gulf State Park. The ocean is in the process of breaking those rocks into pieces. In only a few millennia they’ll be gone. In the meantime, according to Alabama Congressman Mo Brooks, all the rocks and pebbles falling into the water, not climate change, are causing sea levels around the globe to rise. Photo courtesy of Alabama State Parks. [Editor’s note: The poem by Mary Oliver I posted yesterday made me long to be on Cape Cod. Longing to be on... Continue reading

Posted Saturday night, August 25, 2018. The author cautions his readers: This is fiction, not history, so it should not be used as a reference book. I say, for example, that the United States ambassador to Austria-Hungary at the outbreak of the First World War was Henry Clowes, of Ohio. The actual ambassador at that time was Frederic Courtland Penfield of Connecticut. I also say that a neutron bomb is a sort of magic wand, which kills people instantly, but which leaves their property unharmed. This is a fantasy borrowed from enthusiasts for a Third World War. A real neutron... Continue reading

Posted Saturday morning, August 25, 2018. Blackwater Pond or Beech Forest Pond, the Provincelands, Cape Cod. National Park Service webpage for Beech Forest Trail doesn’t specify. Doesn’t matter for purposes of illustration. The two ponds are close together and share geologic origins. Photo by Jesse Stuart Melching, courtesy of the park service. It’s almost dawn and the usual half-miracles begin within my own personal body as the light enters the gates of the east and climbs into the fields of the sky, and the birds lift their very unimportant heads from the branches and begin to sing; and the insects... Continue reading