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Tom Watson
Interests: music, history, media, technology, books, politics, family.
Recent Activity
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The great Lance Mannion has left us and his passing requires a testament to his gifts and generosity in a venue appropriate to his prolific blogging life. This particular slab of granite will be carved here, upon this ancient turf,... Continue reading
Posted Apr 22, 2021 at Tom Watson
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Growing up on Elaine Terrace on the eastern verges of Yonkers, tucked between Mile Square and Palmer Roads just up from the Thruway cut, there were three historic figures always in open reverence in my grandmother's house - one Italian,... Continue reading
Posted Jan 4, 2018 at Tom Watson
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I haven't read too much about the source material for Christopher Nolan's seat-rattling bones of war epic Dunkirk, which I finally experienced (and that's the right word) in a late-night Imax showing that severely aggravated my already bothersome Trump Era... Continue reading
Posted Aug 20, 2017 at Tom Watson
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The Carlyle is one of those New York hotels. Scene of blue-blooded charity dinners through the ages and red-blooded Kennedy trysts (according to legend anyway, but what else do we have really?) the hotel is an elegant and cozy pre-Depression... Continue reading
Posted Nov 6, 2014 at Tom Watson
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Sister Perry, Baptist Soprano - photo by Beryl Watson, 1983 Celebrity is a strange bolt of cloth. It wraps a mortal being and fashions something more than that, an image or an icon for a idolatrous crowd. When I was... Continue reading
Posted Mar 9, 2014 at Tom Watson
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The phrase "during the war" played an out-sized role in my suburban New York upbringing, and it meant only one conflict - not the Vietnam War, which raged for my entire childhood, producing casualty counts nightly on the CBS Evening... Continue reading
Posted Jan 12, 2014 at Tom Watson
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In his 1946 essay Why I Write, George Orwell fused a writer's development with his personal experiences, and in particular, the times he has lived in. I do not think one can assess a writer’s motives without knowing something of... Continue reading
Posted Dec 15, 2013 at Tom Watson
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Columbia University has for years used 854-1754 as its main telephone number, and it is the line that shows up when student volunteers call alumni to seek donations during the dinner hour. It is, I suppose, a clever reminder that... Continue reading
Posted Dec 6, 2013 at Tom Watson
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Of all of New York's public buildings, the one I have spent the most time in by far is connected to bridges and tunnels to the north, from the Bronx all the way to the rural Harlem Valley in the... Continue reading
Posted Dec 4, 2013 at Tom Watson
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There is a spot in Yonkers near a curve on Palmer Road, just up from the intersection of Mile Square Road, high on the hill above the Dunwoodie Golf Course, where on a relatively clear day you can peer from... Continue reading
Posted Dec 3, 2013 at Tom Watson
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Without even venturing to the upper reaches of Fifth Avenue, I unreservedly despise the Metropolitan Museum's new Costume Institute exhibition, PUNK: Chaos to Couture, which purports to "examine punk's impact on high fashion from the movement's birth in the early... Continue reading
Posted May 6, 2013 at Tom Watson
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When I was in the last years of grade school and an underclassman in high school - both Catholic, middle class, and predominantly white - there was one word that almost always guaranteed playground or sandlot bloodshed among adolescent males.... Continue reading
Posted Apr 30, 2013 at Tom Watson
Agreed on the T comment, but... The "shelter in place" part? Cops ordering people back indoors all over metro area, literally ordering businesses to close? That ain't transportation. That's top down.
Toggle Commented Apr 20, 2013 on Paranoia, The Destroyer at Tom Watson
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Hindsight broadcasts in full HD, but I remember thinking yesterday that the total lockdown ordered by authorities for the greater Boston metropolitan area - with the "shelter in place" order stretching from roughly Emerson's house down to the Adams farm,... Continue reading
Posted Apr 20, 2013 at Tom Watson
Posted Mar 26, 2013 at Tom Watson
Yeah, it does have its moments - not quite the Russian roulette horror (which was really a metaphor anyway, however horrible) but still quite powerful. Your post was great 'cos it was instant outrage! Those are my fave....
That's very well said - Alderson doesn't share the passion. Omar, for all his faults (not saying the guy was perfect by any means) shared the fans' passion!
Toggle Commented Mar 25, 2013 on Valley of the Ashes, 2013 at Tom Watson
Yeah, go Blue Jays!
Toggle Commented Mar 25, 2013 on Valley of the Ashes, 2013 at Tom Watson
And what's their cost in reputation, JD? Has to be massive compared to keeping Reader going. Feels like pure arrogance to me.
Toggle Commented Mar 25, 2013 on Google Trust at Tom Watson
Chris - very well said. I think people will be watching this film for decades to understand where the country went this last decade.
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We watched Zero Dark Thirty the other evening, and it struck me that as a big screen country we've reached the cinematic region located roughly halfway between The Green Berets and Platoon in terms of how America copes on film... Continue reading
Posted Mar 25, 2013 at Tom Watson
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As is our habit in these (long quiet) precincts, we usually turn to the fabulous M.A. Peel for all things Catholic, Irish, and Mad Men (usually in that order). So we can't let a season turn - though it really... Continue reading
Posted Mar 24, 2013 at Tom Watson
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A number of years ago, my Parliamentary namesake the well-known Labour MP Tom Watson from West Bromwich East was kindly giving me a tour behind the scenes of Whitehall, where he was then running the Cabinet Office at the very... Continue reading
Posted Mar 23, 2013 at Tom Watson
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I run my business largely on Google's platform: email, files, calendar, my telephone number and easy syncing across multiple devices. I'm also a power user of Google's Android mobile operating system - it's my choice for both phone and tablet.... Continue reading
Posted Mar 22, 2013 at Tom Watson
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As Levi Asher will tell you, Mets culture is built upon the best-known ash heap in Western literature. This is a valley of ashes -- a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens;... Continue reading
Posted Mar 19, 2013 at Tom Watson