My New Republic article on 1976 Republican platform unavailable at Republican Party headquarters after the convention. See Wikipedia’s description of The bizarre Republican National Convention of 1976 “Going into the convention, Ford had won more primary delegates than Reagan, as well as plurality in popular vote. However, Ford did not have enough to secure the nomination, […]
Digressions
How Jews celebrate Christmas: Photo origin corrections and a song
The song [youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1uZ_W7atDE[/youtube] Correction 1. Hadley V. Baxendale, who sent the above photograph, sets the record straight: “BTW, Joel, this is not my photograph, and I don’t know if it is San Francisco – it was e-mailed to me by [Pseudonemous Friend] and is now officially viral.” 2. Hadley writes to Pseudonemous Friend: “[D]o you know […]
A FEW HINTS ON ETIQUETTE from Will Cuppy’s How to be a hermit (1929)
[Note: I have not laughed in a month. Will Cuppy amuses me. Amusement may help unstick me from whatever has caused me to be stuck in the first place. Readers may or may not find additional explanation at the end of this excerpt from Will Cuppy’s 1929 book How to be a Hermit.] A FEW […]
POEM: From a bar I cannot afford and rarely frequent
–-for Robin who brought me my one Manhattan When I look up from my chair at the bar Five television screens are playing each Different programs. Loud music (not too loud) rock and crossover plays. There is this quiet period. Stimulation is pro forma; not urgent. The bar’s loud weekend by comparison scared me away. […]
May 2014 motto
“If someone were to ask me now for directions in the neighborhoods where I lived the first twenty-five years of my life I could only say, with a helpless smile, ‘I am a stranger here myself.’” –Lewis Mumford
Bonnie and Clyde’s death car
Glenn Gould – Mozart, Piano Sonata No.11In A K.333
My mother’s role in overthrowing the legally-elected government of Guatemala
One year after Mother and I returned to Miami Beach, Florida from Simon Kreindler’s bar mitzvah in Guatemala, President Dwight David Eisenhower (“Ike”) directed the CIA to overthrow the legally elected government of Guatemala. Mother immediately took credit for this success. What follows are the facts as described in Pulitzer Prize winning David Halberstam’s book […]