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In a Lonely Place is a carefully written, economically directed, suspenseful, and sometimes menacing piece of work. Filmed in 1949, released in 1950, it has aged very well. I've seen it four or five times over the years, and it improves with each viewing. Humphrey Bogart is true to his natural bent as a half-crazed,…
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I'm more or less reconciled to my anonymity. Just not a famous dude. Not an "influencer." Haven't been covered by newspapers or reporters in a generation or two. But now notoriety has struck. Careful and diligent readers of this blague know that the old West Bradford graveyard — a couple of acres of bumpy terrain…
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Alabama representative Ernie Yarbrough has introduced a bill called the Abolish Abortion in Alabama Act which reclassifies abortion as murder in the first degree. Pregnant women who abort a child, either surgically or through the use of drugs, would be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. According to the Alabama Political Reporter, Yarbrough…
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The world's ugliest building, or at minimum a top competitor for the title, is located just a block or so down the street from our present abode. Too damn close, in fact, because it broadcasts its miasma of aesthetic gloom directly at me. It's a large ungainly brick cube — windowless, characterless, featureless, probably designed…
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I suspect that I know more about wood than most laymen, partly as a consequence of Uncle Al owning and operating the sawmill for all those years. And then there's my own independent enthusiasm for trees: planting and transplanting, gathering and saving seeds. Nevertheless, The Age of Wood by Roland Ennos presented amateur me with…
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Here's a "painting" that is on exhibit in the lobby of the condominium in which I've lived since 2009. It's been there as long as I have been. It is unsigned — the "artist" hasn't been courageous enough to inscribe it. In the privacy of my aggrieved mind, I attribute it to creature-of-my-imagination whom I…
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When I get older losing my mindJust a few years from nowWill you still be sending me a ValentineBirthday greetings bottle of wine If I'd been out till quarter to nineWould you lock the doorWill you still need me, or will you need to feed meWhen I'm ninety-four. You'll be ancient tooAnd if you…
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[March, 2012] Well, maybe not readers. Page-viewers. But did they view closely? Did they savor the wit and learning? Did they browse? Or did they merely Ctrl-C and plagiarize a few sentences for that high school essay which is due tomorrow morning? Still, 100,000 is a good round number. Some bloggers, alas, have as many…
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Dear Diary: why is everybody always picking on me? It's been a really bad month, even before someone deliberately gave me the virus. Sometimes I want to cry, it's been so tough, but Daddy Fred would hate me for that. The press, the TV people, some of those losers at Fox (not Hannity). Even my…
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Despite its marvelously odd sound, there was no word more familiar to me as an infant than "umpire." "Umpire!!" Say it, savor it, roll it about in your mouth. It's a downright peculiar word. Am I exaggerating when I say that "umpire" came into my ken right along with the initial acquisition of language? And…