January 2016
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Folks who know me know that I'm not an imaginative or inventive human being. I'm kind of dull, actually — predictable, routinized, even humdrum. What most people don't know is that I have an extremely vivid and creative nighttime life. I dream big and I dream weird. Take last night for example (an ordinary night by my…
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Sarah Palin, wordsmith, famous for her portmanteau "refudiate" (a blend of refute and repudiate) has struck again with "squirmish," a coinage which amalgamates "squirm" and "skirmish." Here's the relevant sentence: "Those are legitimate questions on both sides of the aisle, and another big question that has to be asked is 'Are we at war?' I haven't…
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I published this reminiscence some years ago: My daughter continues to urge me to write something autobiographical. To which I reply, it’s all autobiographical. But since she wants hard news, not indirect revelation, I offer this account of my grandmother, born Sonia Chafetz, later, by marriage, Sonia Usilewski and finally, after a legal name change,…
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I didn't "get" Shane when I first saw it in 1953 when I just fourteen, and I didn't ''get" it again last night when I watched it for the fourth or fifth time, lifetime. It's a watchable film in my considered opinion but I have no idea why various canon-creators have ranked it third or fourth among…
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Evolution was inordinately fond of beetles. According to the coleopterists, there are some 400,000 species, with many more still to be identified. Beetles are everywhere. Every time I introduce a new plant into my garden, along comes a species of beetle new to me. Nevertheless, I must admit, to my shame and embarrassment, that I can call only a…
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As is well known, Vivian de St. Vrain, fully accredited prophet (Senior Fellow, American Society of Prophecy), has an unparalleled record of accurate prognostication. Vivian has once again retreated to the mountaintop and has returned with a new set of predictions for the coming year. Read and be dazzled, fit audience though few. Here's what's going to happen!…
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Which translates as "sleep is the image of death." It's a medieval commonplace: God has blessed us with sleep in order to prepare us for the long sleep of death. A daily premonitory death. I can't buy the theology. However, I believe that there's genuine truth to somnus imago mortis. I'm a bad sleeper, a tosser…