The Weekly Screed

Field of miscreants

By David Benjamin | 04/16/2025 | Comments Off on Field of miscreants

by David Benjamin “Growing up is a ritual, more deadly than religion, more complicated than baseball, for there seem to be no rules. Everything is experienced for the first time.” ― W.P. Kinsella, Shoeless Joe MADISON, Wis.—In the Wisconsin town where I lived ’til I was thirteen, there were two “official” baseball fields, complete with…

Read More...

The deep end of the no-talent pool

By David Benjamin | 04/10/2025 | Comments Off on The deep end of the no-talent pool

by David Benjamin “[Peter] Navarro is dumber than a sack of bricks.” — Elon Musk MADISON, Wis.—My friend Smedley has survived for decades as a Washington D.C. “insider.” The secret of his success is a chameleonlike knack for adjusting to the ebb and flow of the ideological tides in American politics. He keenly predicted, during…

Read More...

That’s the way you do the Varsity Drag

By David Benjamin | 04/02/2025 | Comments Off on That’s the way you do the Varsity Drag

by David Benjamin “You gotta do the Black Botton/ Gotta do the Shag/ And the Charleston/ And the Varsity Drag/ Oh, how I love the ladies/ Wear collegiate, collegiate clothes/ We’re so collegiate/ Rather be a ladies/ Rather be a ladies man…” —Good News MADISON, Wis.—When I was sixteen, I added about two pounds to…

Read More...

Hail, Oceania!

By David Benjamin | 03/27/2025 | Comments Off on Hail, Oceania!

by David Benjamin “By word and deed, Trump treats Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping as his only real peers. Our allies, by contrast, are our subordinates. It’s as if Putin, Xi and Trump were feudal lords and each were entitled to his own feudal domain.” —David French, NY Times, 23 March MADISON, Wis.—Writing in 1948,…

Read More...

The diversionary allure of desperate times

By David Benjamin | 03/20/2025 | Comments Off on The diversionary allure of desperate times

by David Benjamin “I learned how to read the distance of a flyball from the crack of the bat over the radio and the tone of Earl Gillespie’s response (he never, ever hyped a warning-track quail as a dinger).” —David Benjamin, The Life and Times of the Last Kid Picked MADISON, Wis.—It wasn’t an every…

Read More...

“Trump would … ”

By David Benjamin | 03/13/2025 | Comments Off on “Trump would … ”

by David Benjamin “Winning isn’t everything. It’s the only thing.” —Vince Lombardi MADISON, Wis.—Right around the time he applies his Sharpie to an edict changing the name of Canada to Trumpanada and sending the North Dakota National Guard to invade Saskatchewan, Donald Trump is going to run out of weird-ass “executive orders” to dream up…

Read More...

A Métro mystery

By David Benjamin | 03/08/2025 | Comments Off on A Métro mystery

by David Benjamin “It’ll be quite quiet when you first get on/ But as that tram keeps moving along/ It’ll fill with people starting on their day/ They’ll be laughing and joking as they eat/ They’ll be passing plates along the seats/ Your night of heartache will soon seem far away/ And even though you’re…

Read More...

Move fast, break things, kill the pig

By David Benjamin | 02/26/2025 | Comments Off on Move fast, break things, kill the pig

by David Benjamin “Aren’t there any grownups at all?” — Piggy PARIS—One of the blessings of a liberal arts education is the ability to discern timeless themes from the turmoil of the moment. The return of Donald Trump to his Second Reich at the Resolute Desk, attended by a menagerie of suckups and vandals, has…

Read More...

Outmaneuvering the maestro

By David Benjamin | 02/20/2025 | Comments Off on Outmaneuvering the maestro

by David Benjamin “If they give you ruled paper, write the other way” —Juan Ramon Jimenez PARIS—The dilemma of the moment in America and beyond: Confrontation or subversion? Or both? I offer a case in point: Many moons ago, the renowned La Scala Opera Company of Milan mounted a lengthy excursion to Japan. It brought…

Read More...

Jerome the Giant goes outdoors

By David Benjamin | 02/13/2025 | Comments Off on Jerome the Giant goes outdoors

by David Benjamin Jerome was a giant. Nobody told him he was a giant, but he figured it out. Jerome lived indoors and never went out. There were no windows in his house. If there were windows, the tinies might be able to squeeze inside. They might get hurt. Jerome had learned a lot from…

Read More...