Wax museums and The Beatles: a postscript

A few weeks ago, I interrogated my memory of why I so intensely disliked The Beatles as a child and tween. Basically, I blamed the Fab Four for frightening me when I was seven or eight years old, when what actually frightened me was a wax museum Chamber of Horrors. Combine that with my extreme … Continue reading Wax museums and The Beatles: a postscript →

Interrogating memory: The Beatles, wax museums and a diner mystery solved

To the extent my writing over the last three years has a theme (or perhaps even a brand), it is what I call interrogating memory. At one level, this is just a fancy term for “fact-checking,” as in looking through my elementary school report cards (I am missing the one for third grade[1]) to confirm … Continue reading Interrogating memory: The Beatles, wax museums and a diner mystery solved →

Road trips and the fine art of tipping (Epilogue)

Following the election of Republican Donald J. Trump as president of the United States in 2016, I immediately began to donate small sums to a wide variety of organizations and political candidates. And as the race to the be the 2020 Democratic presidential nominee began to take shape, I began making $10 donations to my … Continue reading Road trips and the fine art of tipping (Epilogue) →

Road trips and the fine art of tipping (Part 2)

We pulled out of our Brookline driveway in my wife Nell’s Honda Pilot, bound for the Hilton in Bath, Maine, at 10:15 am. Within an hour-and-a-half, we had left our golden retriever safely in the care of Nell’s mother and were driving north on I-95. Unwittingly, though, we had joined the molasses-slow line of cars … Continue reading Road trips and the fine art of tipping (Part 2) →

Road trips and the fine art of tipping (Part I)

A few weeks ago, I finally watched Reservoir Dogs. I am very squeamish about blood (seeing it can literally cause me physical pain[1]), and I knew there was a great deal of bloodletting in Quentin Tarantino’s 1992 heist-gone-wrong neo-noir masterpiece. Plus, a friend had once informed me she could never hear the Stealers Wheel song … Continue reading Road trips and the fine art of tipping (Part I) →

Happy July 4th! Here is my American story.

Happy 4th of July! Let me first note, transparent in my pedantry, the Declaration of Independence was actually approved on July 2, 1776. Nonetheless, it was dated July 4, 1776 and signed August 2, 1776. Allow me next to relate I was physically born (at long-since-closed Metropolitan Hospital, then at 3rd and Spruce) roughly 1/5 … Continue reading Happy July 4th! Here is my American story. →

Remembrance of restaurants past (and present)

Father’s Day was this past Sunday, June 16, 2019. Having now been a father for more than a decade, I am perfectly content with a low-key celebration: dinner out with the family, perhaps, somewhere special but child-friendly. Maybe somewhere a little further afield, so we add a nice drive as well. Given that restaurants are … Continue reading Remembrance of restaurants past (and present) →

The Noir of Who: Part 4

I have long been fascinated by “two worlds collided” connections between disparate things. Emblematic of that fascination has been observing the influence of classic-era film noir on the television series Doctor Who, following its resurrection in 2005. Emerging from those observations was the essay “The Noir of Who: Classic Film Noir’s Imprint on the Resurrected … Continue reading The Noir of Who: Part 4 →