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I Was a Teenage Autumnal
“Even someone who is pure at heart, and says their prayers at night, can turn into an Autumn freak when the pumpkin spice blooms and the moon is full and bright.” — Aristotle, probably. I was driving home the other night, it was a little after eight-thirty at night. It was one of those awfully […]
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Is The Washing Machine Trying to Kill Me?
It’s the day after the three day weekend. So it’s a Tuesday, that not only feels like a Monday, but the Mondayest Monday. As such I’ve been working on getting things done I need to get done, and house chores that need to be tackled, specifically a massive pile of laundry that was well on […]
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Monster On The Campus
At long last, September is here. Which means we are closer to Fall, which means we are closer to October, which means we are closer to Halloween. I’ve written on several occasions of how when this time of the year comes around I begin to dive into one of my most favorite movie worlds, Universal […]
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One Man’s Dream
The other night at dinner, my non-existent son, Lemuel, was too preoccupied with doing that flossing dance than he was eating the fine meal my also non-existent wife, Sheila, had made. I looked at the boy and said: “Son if you eat all your broccoli, you can play a Fortnite.” The flossing stopped, the eating […]
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Thin Manned Smiths Named Pete
There are certain times when I speak to you about new releases from Warner Archive that I find myself particularly geeked. Which is to not say I’m not always enthusiastic when speaking about their titles, but sometimes they put out something that hits right in the target of my movie love, and or is something […]
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Rumination on Wellsville
In the weeks following the death of my father, I’ve spent a lot of time re-watching my favorite “comfort food” TV. Many of these are shows I grew up watching as a kid on Nickelodeon and Nick at Nite. I’ve been binging “The Bob Newhart Show” and thinking about how wonderfully brilliant that series is, […]
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Klute
By the early 1970s, Hollywood—and America—was changing. The production code, that set of rules placed in the 1930s that told movie studios what they could, and couldn’t, show on screen had crumbled. Audiences were ready for Hollywood to grow up, as the late 1960s faded into the early 1970s, the innocence that had existed in […]
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Tracking Notification
Do you ever get excited when you receive an email that tells you “your package has shipped?” When I was a kid, and before the existence of eBay, packages showing up at the house were few and far between. I always thought, in that way that kids look at the adult world, that a package […]
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A Weekend Away
I am not, by nature, one of those types who thinks that men need to get away to the woods for a “get in touch with your primitive side” retreat. One of those ridiculous things were men who have more income than I set things on fire in a desperate attempt to battle their insecurity. […]
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Gaslight
Are you familiar with the term “gaslighting?” The term is given to a type of psychological abuse where the victim is purposely and gradually manipulated into questioning their own reality. The moniker comes from Patrick Hamilton’s 1938 English stage play “Gas Light,” in which a young woman is purposefully duped into questioning her own sanity. […]
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The Lawnmower Person
My non-existent wife Sheila and I own a lot of acreages thanks to the dowry her parents offered when we were married. We don’t keep this vast amount of land up as much as we should, as with my allergies mowing the lawn isn’t all that fun—even with a mask on. But the other night, […]
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The Magazine Fantasy
For most of my adult life, I’ve subscribed to a cooking magazine. For years it was Gourmet, but when it went defunct I began to search for another one, and for the last couple of years I’ve subscribed to Bon Appetite. Last year, or the year before—I can’t quite recall when—they ran a feature for […]
