Beer and football XI — the new league year

The beer: True North Garuda Coffee Milk Stout The commentary: Item! Abandon hope all ye who enter here. So this is football, everyday football, for almost every other fanbase. Uncertainty, denial, malaise, a looming and socially distant draft in which the idea of selecting a quarterback is not relegated to later rounds for novelty backup […]

Ed Muskie and Ebenezer Scrooge walk into a bar

Updated: January 2, 2021 Continuing, for some reason, to chronicle every book and short story I’ve read since The Lord of the Rings in the spring of 2017. Part 1 (2017) | Part 2 (2018) | Part 3 (2019) | “Selected readings from the Old Lady Book Club” Critical remarks are avoided… Rereads coopt the register mark… “Library Book Club” selections […]

You gotta have fear in your heart

Welcome back to May, dear friend and reader! Is this better? Are you again comfortable? Are you even there? Welcome, also, to another round of Remember When? as I parse my own archives. Last year’s Volume 10 was that in spades, compiling a Best of Me on the way to six thousand more words. I […]

Beer and football IX — playoffs, week four (bye)

The beer: Proclamation Derivative Vic Secret Pale Ale The commentary: Some people lose front teeth. Others lose old blog posts. (Transition: smooth.) My relationship with the Biff! Bang! words you’re reading is troubled, and if the Pats weren’t such a goddamn winning machine I might have signed off altogether following the Beefheart crowning achievement. It’s […]

Andy Dufresne and Anatoli Boukreev walk into a bar

Updated: January 1, 2020 Continuing, for some reason, to chronicle every book and short story I’ve read since The Lord of the Rings in the spring of 2017. Part 1 (2017) | Part 2 (2018) | “Selected readings from the Old Lady Book Club” Critical remarks are avoided… Rereads coopt the register mark… “Library Book Club” selections are noted […]