October 2024
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In the course of my long life, I've visited hundreds of museums — more than I can possibly count or remember. Nor just the famous and glorious ones: how many times, driving in unfamiliar locality, or wandering in a new city, have I been irresistibly lured into the local landmark? Even in the most modest…
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My series of posts called Words of My Life was originally inspired by a Federico Roncoroni's Sillabario della Memoria, viaggio sentimentale tra le parole amate. Roncoroni's book is a unique and I think original kind of autobiography — a history (voyage, he says) of words that have been been loved by him. Words of My…
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I'm a terrible, terrible sleeper. It's a lifelong plight and a serious disability. Truth to tell, I'd have more success as a contestant in a tango contest, or as a heldentenor yodeling in front of thousands, or as a trapeze artist or as a sumo wrestler than I have as a sleeper. Bad sleeping runs…
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During my lifetime, the word "outing" has mutated beyond recognition. It first entered my youthful vocabulary (as did so many other words) through the medium of baseball. An "outing" — in the old days –meant to me only a stint on the mound. "Podres has had a good "outing" today." The more general meaning of…
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It's my newest acquisition, purchased on Ebay just a couple of days ago, but already a favorite. It's a bronze door plate, very beautiful and heavy in the hand. It's inscribed PULL. It bears no manufacturers or identifying marks but the style is mighty pure Victorian. I imagine it came from a demolished once-elegant downtown…
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Folks who weren't there can hardly appreciate how thoroughly the nation and neighborhood into which I was born was baseball-saturated. In the 1940s and 1950s, the heyday of the fabled Dodgers, baseball was Brooklyn and Brooklyn was the world — of this there was, nor could be, any doubt. Baseball was the all-encompassing medium…