March 2010
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I have just read, for the first time ever, Agnes Grey (1847) by Anne Bronte, and what an infinitely sad book it is! Poor Agnes, an impoverished clergyman's daughter, goes as a governess and is daily humiliated by monstrously spoiled children and their grotesquely insensitive parents. Her sufferings are poignantly particularized. The novel is structured…
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Pretty Poison was released in 1960 to excellent notices. I remember adding it to the must-see list. But I didn't get around to it at the time, probably because the film wasn't widely distributed. But Pretty Poison stuck in my mind — or rather it was the combination of Anthony Perkins and Tuesday Weld that excited my…
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Last night, the grandkids had a little fun with the old guy. Miss T. (b. 1999), concluded that Grandpa's electronic and computer skills were (her exact words) "stone age." Is she correct? Let us review the circumstances. I was here, in B–ld-r, trying to watch the Cornell-Kentucky sweet-sixteen on streaming video (CBS again gave the…
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There's been some criticism — justified, I must admit — about the dexterity of my shaving. It appears that my face has become more, what shall I say? intricate over the last years, and has developed some interesting crannies that resist the approach of the razor. In order to improve my shaving technique, I bought one of…
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Last night, one of our dinner guests said that at least we no longer have to worry about "pre-existing conditions." Persnickety about language as always, I pointed out that the phrase "pre-existing condition" was a ridiculous piece of jargon. What is meant is "existing conditions?" A condition can't exist before it exists. "Aha," said another…
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Two derelicts on the B–ld-r M-ll, both of them victims of (I'd guess) methedrine, beer, tobacco, certainly marijuana and who knows what else. Neither of them looking good: emaciation, missing teeth, scraggly beards, odors strong enough to be visible, cachexis. A: "What are you eating?"B. "Some kind of corn chip?"A. "How are they?"B. "Salty. I…
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When I was a mere tad, perhaps seven or eight years old but already an enthusiastic reader, I was given a subscription (by whom?) to a children's magazine, perhaps Jack and Jill. It arrived once a month and took perhaps ten minutes to read. It was certainly my older brother (who later owned a large…
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Every once in a while, a mountain lion creeps into the fold and snares a lamb, a foal, or a German shepherd. At even more infrequent intervals, a mountain lion attacks a human being (usually a child). Whenever there's a human-lion interaction, there comes a deluge of letters to the local newspaper demanding that the…
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Every week or so there's yet another breakthrough 'scientific' survey to tell you which city is the healthiest, or the least obese, or the richest, or the most educated, or whatever. There's a new one out — a poll by Gallup-Healthways that has determined that the "happiest" place in the entire U. S. of A. is…
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A sorority girl fell off the roof of her house last week. She was, of course, staggeringly drunk. She messed herself up pretty badly but she will live. Accidents of this kind happen regularly in our college town. Kids fall off roofs, kids drive drunk and kill someone or themselves, or kids just binge-drink themselves…