Many Moments More

Oct 1710 min read

Favorite/best, Bumble, stain the mug, Sleepy Hollow, Gold Glove finalists, Pee Wee Reese, Taylor Swift

Thursday 10/17/24 People don't understand the difference between "favorite" and "best." That's how loath they are to think and how...

Oct 1611 min read

Prose off: Story by Guggenheim recipient and Pulitzer Prize winner Joshua Cohen in The New Yorker put forward by editor Deborah Treisman that's sure to produce bobbleheading v. Fleming story

Wednesday 10/16/24 I swear, looking at what these people write, seeing it as anyone would see it for how bad it is if they're actually...

Oct 166 min read

Further thoughts on M.R. James's "Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad"

Wednesday 10/16/24 Just jotting down a few further thoughts about M.R. James' story, "Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad." It may...

Oct 158 min read

Prose off: Short story about, what do you know, the literary magazine world, in American Short Fiction v. Fleming story

Tuesday 10/15/24 I'll have to keep this one brief, as American Short Fiction is no longer running stories in full on their website--or...

Oct 151 min read

Letter w/"The Bird" to mom on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of my sister's death

Tuesday 10/15/24 What can you say? *** Mom, I was trying to think if there was anything I could do to make this day easier for you. I...

Oct 1513 min read

A three-day "weekend" in October

Tuesday 10/15/24 I've been reading some guy's dissertation on the Grateful Dead's "Dark Star," focusing on the 2/27/69 version on...

Oct 115 min read

Sports before meatier

Friday 10/11/24 I will get to meatier matters soon. This will just be some sports notes. Most people would probably like to see an NLCS...

Oct 105 min read

Leave the dirt

Thursday 10/10/24 October 21 is the tenth anniversary of my sister Kerrin's death and I have been trying to think of something nice I...

Oct 105 min read

Some words about Luis Tiant (1940-2024), one of the most popular players in Red Sox history

Thursday 10/10/24 I wanted to say a few words about former Red Sox pitcher Luis Tiant, who died the other day. Usually, discussion about...

Oct 85 min read

Please, Bob Costas, enough; potentially historically bad Bruins deal; creepy Bill Belichick; how to trick Bob Kraft

Monday 10/7/24 Bob Costas can't help himself. He kept himself reined in the other night, but he's back to palavering and trying to be...

Oct 72 min read

Excerpt from piece on 1957's Blood of Dracula

Monday 10/7/24 This is one of those horror films in which the monster is also the victim, but the teen/family saga version. Nancy is a...

Oct 75 min read

October baseball excitement, withstanding the Patriots, the swings of college football, a manager returns

Monday 10/7/24 There was plenty of exciting baseball over the weekend. Nothing in sports beats baseball in October. Padres-Dodgers has...

Oct 49 min read

Which is to say that things are very bad

Friday 10/4/24 People will defend anything except greatness. Any behavior, any kind of person, any entity. People want to tear down...

Oct 24 min read

Notes on Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

Wednesday 10/2/24 I'm glad that Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein (1818) so that we have much of what followed from it--like the James...

Oct 12 min read

In addition to raping an underage girl, Pete Rose appeared in fourteen postseason series

Tuesday 10/1/24 We'll do another Pete Rose one. We talked about his raping earlier , in addition to providing facts about who he was as a...

Oct 13 min read

Ain't no one getting anywhere close

Tuesday 10/1/24 They can play all their games, give out their bullshit awards, dry hump each to death in their sinecure-sandboxes, but...

Oct 15 min read

Pete Rose

Tuesday 10/1/24 Pete Rose died yesterday, the day before the baseball playoffs begin, which feels oddly fitting. In 1975, Pete Rose was...

Sep 306 min read

Dispiriting Patriots: A (just about) quarter-season report

Monday 9/30/24 I don't know if the Patriots are the worst team in the NFL, but I do know they're close. The main reason for that is...

Sep 3022 min read

When you write you have to be aware of how obtuse people are, featuring cameos by Matt Bell and Junot Diaz, with further discussion about various publishing industry and writing matters

Monday 9/30/24 What am I suggesting by that opening statement? That you change how you write? No, not necessarily. I meant it as I said...

Sep 292 min read

A disagreement between buddies about who can be a unicorn for Halloween followed by a costume brainstorming session with the Little Ghost Girl

Sunday 9/29/24 The other day I FaceTimed with a certain four-year-old buddy of mine, my niece Amelia, as I was walking to Charlestown to...

Sep 298 min read

The strangest thing to happen to me since I started running stairs

Sunday 9/29/24 The strangest thing to happen to me in the entire time I've been running stairs occurred yesterday at the Bunker Hill...

Sep 274 min read

On stairs

Friday 9/27/24 An entry about stairs before doing something very unpleasant pertaining to stairs and several editors at Bloomsbury, which...

Sep 276 min read

3000 days w/o alcohol, M.R. James slog, the people who never read Poe, lucky Lovecraft, Out of the Past, George Harrison and Rubber Soul and Revolver, LGG, colorized Scrooge (gag)

Friday 9/27/24 Yesterday marked 3000 days without a drink. I could estimate how many drinks I might have had over those 3000 days if I...