May 2022
-
From my birth in 1939 until I fled to Ithaca in 1956, I lived on East 9th Street, in a section of Brooklyn that had no other name than "Flatbush." But all is flux, as Heraclitus said in a very different context, and now the undistinguished neighborhood of my youth has been upgraded to pretentious…
-
The rip-roaring conclusion to Dodge City (1939), is marvelously dumb. The bad guys, led by really nasty villain Jeff Surrett (Bruce Cabot) have jumped out of the burning railroad car and onto their horses. They are going to make a getaway, we assume. But for some reason, the six schmegeggees don't ride away from the…
-
Ukraine has been invaded and whole cities have been obliterated by the Putin dictatorship. It's tragic. Once again, I'm overwhelmingly grateful that my grandparents chose to pack up and leave the blighted Ukraine. It's a decision that has looked better and better with each passing year. My father's family came from a Ukrainian "shtetl" called…