Halloween 2019 The spirit of the American West was not risk-averse. It hungered for danger, in a way that 21st-century Americans can only...

October 2019 Growing up in New Jersey, I departed at a young age from that state with the conclusion that corruption between politicians...

Thursday, 17 October 2019 I tried yesterday to start inputting onto my laptop my pen-scrawled French translation of the second half of...

Columbus Day 2019 I heartily enjoy Elizabethan verse, although many people do not. I’d even considered creating a Great Books library...

27 September 2019 This post is not a poem or even a song, but an outpouring of a grateful heart which is, in its highest sense, a poem or...

10 September 2019 On the eve of 9/11, I offer a prayer to the Almighty for all who suffered and who suffer still because of evil and its accomplices. Any plaintive person can best be comforted by the truth which always sets free the heart in misery, the soul in anguish. The truth — the truths — of what was really going on during the past 20 years in the USA, in the UK, in France, in Western Europe — have all come home to roost. Fraud and deception were more costly for the pho

21 August 2019 Yesterday, almost accidentally, I found the Bridget Fabrics: layers cakes and charm packs and jelly rolls from The Fat...

August 2019 Update The decade’s end is approaching, and I see no sign in sight of the advertising geniuses having re-built that span...

Summer 2019 It holds secrets all its own, no matter where the botanic creation thrives. The concept is the same, no matter where the...

5 July 2019 My years in Washington, D.C. were wretched ones, highlighted by a half-a-dozen stellar, stalwart individuals whom I encountered amidst the pre-Swamp creatures. I arrived there with $300 in my American-made wallet. I was a full-merit scholarship student at the George Washington University, also known as GWU. Nearly six years later, I departed the District for good with not much more cash in hand, but with a slew of experiences and memories, the stuff of which novel

July 2019 Sure, It’s Eggy . . . The automobile and I have a fairly tortured history. And, in all fairness to myself, it wasn’t a one-way street. Each vehicle in question exasperated me just as much as I exhausted every attempt to find common ground, or road, with it. I did not own a car until I was well into my 20’s and had moved to California from the East. I soon, and alarmingly, discovered that Life in the Golden State without a vehicle is impossible. In a State where a

D-Day 2019 Ah ! Comment Artur me manque ! Oh! How I miss Arthur! In French, missing someone is a matter of putting the onus on the other...

Memorial Day 2019 It was during my research into the voluminous materials that would transform my ideas for a war novel called NOTTINGHAM...

May 2019 I was raised with a ton of etiquette. Manners were the strong suit of my mother. Morals is where she fell down, precipitously and often. I have therefore always carefully pondered the relationship between manners and morals, and the ruses that an immoral person can use to cover up treachery. My tendency has always been to give the lout the benefit of the doubt: maybe he hadn’t been taught proper etiquette. It was once quite possible to cover up inner corruption with

The April Fools 2019 This phrase is not mine. I found it in a diatribe posing as a book review on the rain-forest selling platform that...

29 March 2019 DON’T GIVE UP THE SHIP! It has become nearly impossible for the will of civilized people in the grass-roots of a nation to...

March 2019 The Beatitudes are among the most blessed and beloved of scriptures from the Holy Bible, specifically from the King James...

3 March 2019 The day will be cloudy and gray this Tuesday in Newcastle, California. On that day, I will join others to celebrate the...

February 2019 My literary research leads me in all sorts of directions, to all sorts of places, perhaps for all sorts of reasons. Perfume, for me, is not just something to wear; it is something to investigate. Several years ago, I purchased a bottle of Mitsouko by the House of Guerlain. It is a strong sensuous perfume, to be used, like discipline, only at the right times; and to be appreciated, like romance, only during special occasions. The name Mitsouko means both “honeyco

13 February 2019 There are times, on a rainy Wednesday such as this one, when the rain and gray skies become overwhelming. And the Day...