The Challenge of the Cheese Sandwich
It takes a good writer to make a good paragraph about a cheese sandwich. And George V. Higgins does just that in The Friends of Eddie Coyle (page 167; Picador…
Thank you, Mr. Abercrombie
It is a late notice, I know, but I wanted to mention my sadness at the passing of Ian Abercrombie, who died on January 26, 2012. He was sublime as…
Mr. Spaceship
In the short story “Mr. Spaceship,” published in 1953 in a publication called Imagination (according to my Citadel Twilight collection, Volume 1), Philip K. Dick put a human brain into…
Douse your Pizza with Pepper Spray
Fox’s Megyn Kelly classifies pepper spray as a food product. So how long before we start putting it in school lunches?
Deep within a Madding Marriage
“A good wife is good, but the best wife is not so good as no wife at all.” That statement, from Pennyways in Thomas Hardy’s Far from the Madding Crowd…
A few passages from The Quiet American
I finally delved into Graham Greene’s The Quiet American, and as expected, it is an awesome book. Beyond the insightful and prescient portrait of Pyle, the personal honesty of Fowler,…
The Living Structure Meme
If you want to prepare for a new and illustrious career for future, I would recommend bioengineering, since future ships and buildings will be living things. Paolo Bacigalupi’s “A Pocketful for…
In the Financial Apocalypse…
It is good to know we can shift to an Egret Economy and trade in feathers should Congress (i.e., the Republicans) decide they are tired of success and drive the…
Bovary and the Beatles
Near the end of Madame Bovary, by Gustave Flaubert, in the translation by Geoffrey Wall, there is a line, describing Charles’s inability to cope with the loss of his wife:…
Rage against…Something
Wisconsin’s Supreme Court cleared the way for Scott Walker’s anti-union law to go into effect. At the same time, legislation against unions – namely teachers and firefighters – is spreading…