It’s the first we heard, but apparently Dan Kennedy is leaving his post as media critic at the Boston Phoenix. Over the years, we’ve enjoyed reading him—especially his smart, clean copy about the rivalry between the Boston Globe and the Boston Herald. One of the best things about the alternative press is its self-conferred (and … Read more
A very funny bit from today’s NY Times on the problems of the poet laureate of England having to write a marriage poem for Charles and Camilla. Aside from having to compete for headlines with the funeral of the Pope, imagine Camilla having to endure the jibes that John Paul, even today, looks better in … Read more
What a voice and what a way with words this old man I met today had. He was out for a stroll –on a lark, he said, just trying to stay loose and keep the juices jangling. Nice day for that sort of thing. I hadn’t seen him around the neighborhood before. He sounded like … Read more
Nice ballgame, very nice. But enough is enough; when do I get a look at this Corky Miller character? I’m getting anxious, and the Corkster’s not doing the club any good sitting on his kiester sucking sunflower seeds. I don’t understand it, quite honestly. Ron Gardenhire’s usually pretty good about keeping his lads sharp, and … Read more
Today, the New York Observer pulls a nifty stunt. Media writer Tom Scocca recreates the masthead of The New Yorker, which has never published such a thing in its seventy-five years of publishing. We wish we’d thought of that. (We’re thinking Spy magazine must have thought of it before, too; they used to publish the … Read more
Sailing to Byzantium by W. B. Yeats THAT is no country for old men. The young In one another’s arms, birds in the trees – Those dying generations – at their song, The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas, Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long Whatever is begotten, born, and dies. Caught in that sensual … Read more
That was better. Much better. Thank you. I must say, I’m quite looking forward to the exciting, season-long sideburn war between Juan Rincon and Joe Mauer. Be careful with those razors, fellas, and may the most virile man win. And speaking of facial hair, did you see that whispy, demonic monstrosity dangling from Scott Spiezio’s … Read more
Aristotle–Mr. Moderation I heard from a friend today–a “moderate” Republican who wanted to talk about the possible rise of a moderate presidential candidate from his side of the fence. He had a candidate in mind, and wrote a nice remembrance of the first time he’d met this candidate and where the candidate came from and … Read more
We never did get a satisfactory answer as to why magazines are conspicuously excluded from the Pulitzer prizes, although yesterday we received word on who’d won. Fiction, history, drama, poetry—musical composition, fer chrissake—are all Pulitzer categories, along with fourteen newspaper categories, but no room at the table for the glossies. What’s more, newspapers are actually … Read more
My Papa’s Waltz by Theodore Roethke The whiskey on your breath Could make a small boy dizzy; But I hung on like death: Such waltzing was not easy. We romped until the pans Slid from the kitchen shelf; My mother’s countenance Could not unfrown itself. The hand that held my wrist Was battered on one … Read more