Sometime in the spring of 1977 (probably), my mother found herself in a suburban Philadelphia record store. Maybe it was the (now long-since-gone) Sam Goody store on Lancaster Avenue in Ardmore. We were living only a short drive away in Havertown at the time, so why not? My then-39-year-old mother rarely payed attention to music … Continue reading How do I love Steely Dan? Let me count…a whole lot of stuff and such.
Author: Matthew Berger
I am a data geek, history researcher, writer and househusband with academic training in political science (BA, Yale; MA, Harvard), biostatistics (MA, Boston University) and epidemiology (PhD, BU). I published Interrogating Memory: Film Noir Spurs a Deep Dive Into My Family History...and My Own in 2022. As of July 2026, I seek a publisher for its completed follow-up, The West Philadelphia Story: An Immigrant Jewish Journey. I plan a third book on my idiosyncratic GenX life. My musical trinity is Genesis, Miles Davis and Stan Ridgway. A liberal Democrat, I know a healthy democracy demands cross-partisan cooperation. I grew up just outside Philadelphia, and I live just outside Boston, where my wife and children keep me happy, sane and grounded.
Ranking every Charlie Chan film
If what I have concluded from my intrepid detective work is correct, I watched my first Charlie Chan movie, Dead Men Tell (directed by Harry Lachman, 1941), starting at 8 pm on July 25, 1976 on Philadelphia’s now-defunct Channel 48. As you can see, it was the first film in a double feature with a … Continue reading Ranking every Charlie Chan film
Interrogating memories of childhood fires
I have settled upon a term (and possibly a book title) for what I describe doing here, here and here. The term is “interrogating memory.” As I write this book (tentative title: Interrogating Memory: Film Noir Spurs a Deep Dive Into My Family History...and My Own), I have spent a great deal of time trying … Continue reading Interrogating memories of childhood fires
Querying the impossible, just for fun
As I research and write this book, I am taking a deep dive into all manner of personal documents, family books and photographs. So many photographs… Here is a photograph I rediscovered that shows my father holding me in his right arm while cupping the chin of my older sister Mindy with his left hand. … Continue reading Querying the impossible, just for fun
Making personal connections, 60 years later
When I launched this blog last December, I intended it to be a place to disseminate all of the quantitative data analyses I was conducting for my own amusement. Such a repository, I theorized, would force me to write up the results of these analyses into short articles. Short, at least, by peer-reviewed journal standards. … Continue reading Making personal connections, 60 years later
Where do rank-and-file Democrats (and Independents) stand on issues right now?
In the wake of Democratic underperformance in the 2016 elections (losing the Electoral College, insufficient gains to win back the United States House of Representatives [House] or United States Senate [Senate], net loss of two governorships, hemorrhaging state legislative seats), various “autopsies” were released. Some autopsies reached conclusions that contradicted the finding of other autopsies … Continue reading Where do rank-and-file Democrats (and Independents) stand on issues right now?
First thoughts on the Senate vote NOT to repeal the ACA
At 1:29 am EST on July 28, 2017, the last of three closely-watched Republican United States Senators (Senators) announced their votes on the “skinny repeal” bill, a bill intended to partially repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (aka ACA, aka Obamacare). According to Anna Maria Barry-Jester of the data journalism website FiveThirtyEight.com, the … Continue reading First thoughts on the Senate vote NOT to repeal the ACA
23and…Who?
This post is unusual in that I am describing (and speculatively analyzing) data I do not yet have, as well as all of the reasons I seek these data despite my reservations. This year’s Amazon Prime Day began at 9 pm EST on July 10, 2017 and ran until 3 am EST, July 12, 2017. … Continue reading 23and…Who?
July 2017 Odds and Ends
My wife tells me that she gets annoyed when blogs she follows take too much time between posts. For mostly travel-related reasons, I have not been able to post a full article since July 6, and I will not be able to do so again for another week at least. Since my preference is never … Continue reading July 2017 Odds and Ends
Writers Write, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Career Changes
What I can’t remember is whether my first exhortation to join the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) arrived in the mail before—or after—my 50th birthday in September 2016. What I do remember (because they are still neatly piled next to the printer, just a few inches to the left of my computer screen as … Continue reading Writers Write, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Career Changes
