Tag: Novemblog 2017
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In praise of wedding reception air drumming
I didn’t realize I had a reputation. At a wedding recently, the bride and groom told me one of the things they were looking forward to the most was my air drumming. They had seen it in action at a previous wedding and had enjoyed it so much that they decided they would make time…
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Family Video to the rescue
Home for Thanksgiving weekend and in the market for a Christmas movie to watch, my sister suggested Die Hard. A great choice for many reasons, one of which being I hadn’t seen it in a while and was due for a seasonal rewatch. Plus my wife hadn’t seen it. (Perish the thought!) The problem was…
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Great Olin’s Raven!
The first baby in my family has arrived. Behold Olin Charles: I’ve made fun of my wife for all the pictures and video she takes of her sister’s kids. I get it now.
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Move it, McDonald’s
The replica of Ray Kroc’s first McDonald’s franchise in Des Plaines, Illinois, where I used to work, will be torn down next month: Kroc, considered by the company to be the founder of the modern chain, built his first restaurant in 1955 after franchising the brand from the original owners, Richard and Maurice McDonald. The…
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My Mount Rushmore of Singers
At this moment, anyway: Sam Cooke, Frank Sinatra, Julie Andrews, Whitney Houston With a runner-up trophy for Marty Robbins.
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Studs Terkel’s ‘Working’
I picked up a copy of Studs Terkels’ Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do, a sort of oral history of life and work in and around 1970s Chicago. I’ve kept it on my nightstand and slowly chipped away at it when I was between…
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A Ghost Story
“O’er all there hung the shadow of a fear, A sense of mystery the spirit daunted, And said, as plain as whisper in the ear, The place is haunted.” – Thomas Hood, “The Haunted House” I thought of that poem, used to great effect in Slow West, after seeing A Ghost Story, David Lowery’s breath of a film.…
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Working toward the truth in ‘How to Think’
There goes Alan Jacobs being right again: it would be better for all concerned if we were content to say that our political opponents are merely wrong. But that’s unlikely to happen, at least widely, because once you say someone is wrong you commit yourself to explaining why he’s wrong — to the world of…
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‘Spotlight’ The News
Let me second Rod Dreher’s considerations of Spotlight in light of the Harvey Weinstein and Roy Moore sexual harassment scandals: It was even better than I remembered it. One aspect of the movie stood out in sharp relief: the way so very many people in Boston knew for years that there was something horrible going…
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Nothing to read here
This, from Andy Weir in his By the Book column at the New York Times, seems like an odd thing to say: For the record, my stories are meant to be purely escapist. They have no subtext or message. If you think you see something like that, it’s in your head, not mine. I just…
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Cool down
At our Subaru dealer for a car tune-up, I spotted this sign beneath the TV on the wall in the waiting room: No, thank you. This rule ought to be extended indefinitely and everywhere. Especially public areas. Cable news of any kind is bad for the mind, body, and soul. I wonder what happened to inspire…
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Tom Hanks Goes Postal
Arriving home after a long weekend in Asheville, I opened our mailbox and saw a letter addressed to me from Playtone, Tom Hanks’ company. Oh shit, I said out loud. I’d typed and sent him a short letter a few weeks ago about my photo of his book and to thank him for being a great ambassador…
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What’s your accidental ritual?
About a year ago I got into the habit of listening to new episodes of the 99% Invisible podcast on Tuesday nights, on my way home from my late night at work. Most episodes are about the length of my drive home. Cruising through dark and empty streets, weary from the day, I revel in the soft…
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Autumn in Asheville
I’d heard a lot of great things about Asheville, North Carolina, so my wife and I finally made a trip there happen to meet up with some Durham friends for a long weekend in the mountains. Surprise: It was wondrous! Our Airbnb was a cabin on a mountain farm in nearby Black Mountain, complete with…
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Google Past
This is the Google Maps Street View of my parents’ home. It’s from 2007, which is old by Google Maps standards. The current view looks very different ten years later. The house is a different color, the front lawn is now completely garden (more like a jungle at this point), and the tree on the…