I’ve always been something of a coin nerd. It began when dad got me into collecting wheat pennies, the early coins minted from 1909 to 1955. I’m not sure why dad liked them, but I hunted them like Ahab on a bender. We tallied 147 of them. They may still lay congregated somewhere, in an unused …
(Warning: spoilers abound) Much ink and many megabytes have been spent in praise of the season 2 finale of Fargo, all of it earned. But in breaking down the cleverness of the final episode, perhaps we, as Lou Solverson would say, are missing the bigger picture there, yeah. For all the brilliant Coen references, time …
Magic tells you two things, about practitioner and witness. For the practitioner, the indicator is obvious. A magician is inherently a geek. God knows where that DNA comes from, but that defective gene takes hold like Alzheimer’s and can’t help but make itself apparent to everyone — because magic requires that you publicly make a jackass …
‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe; All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe. “Beware the Jabberwock, my son! The jaws that bite, the claws that catch! Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun The frumious Bandersnatch!” He took his vorpal sword in hand: Long time …
It’s time to reinstate the draft. Not the traditional one, where we send kids to die in the name of suchandsuch in the middle of Whogivesafuckistan. Instead, the draft needs to reverse polarities; people would be drafted into political office. Think about it. You would decimate PACs, which should be as illegal as yellow-cake uranium. …
Aside from mom and sis, there’s little I miss about the East Coast since leaving there 15 years ago. Space and free time are as rare as plutonium. There’s a palpable tension and gruffness. East Coasters love to bitch about how out of touch California is with real Americans. But I defy anyone to …
It’s been a rough year for Breaking Bad junkies. First, we had to go cold turkey when the finest drama on television concluded its remarkable run. Then Aaron Paul starred in the abysmal Need for Speed. Bryan Cranston took a forgettable role in Godzilla (though he redeems himself playing a legendary screenwriter in Trumbo). And we …
One of the nicest things about returning to class is to see chalkboards again. And erase boards, bulletin boards, Post-It notes — basically any host to the hand-written word. Hell, even the (grammatical) graffiti and light posts doubling as billboards that dot the UCLA campus are a fun read. It’s like a paleolithic Craigslist. I’ve had memorable experiences …
A grandfather I never met lost his tiny Georgia grocery story (in which dad was born) during the Great Depression. He couldn’t bear asking customers, all neighbors and friends, for money they did not have and would not see again. Eventually, he gave away so much that he had to shutter the business. So …
