Upcoming Events:
Wednesday, 8 July, noon - Book Talk, An Apartment in Paris, Mount Horeb Rotary Club, Mount Horeb, Wisconsin
Monday, 13 July, 11:15 am - Book Talk, An Apartment in Paris, Verona Community Center, 108 Paoli Street, Verona, Wisconsin
Tuesday, 14 July, 7 pm - A Dialog on Writing with Dave Wood, Whitehall Public Library, 18560 Scranton Street, Whitehall, Wisconsin.
The Weekly Screed
by David Benjamin “I like Chinese “I like Chinese “They only come up to your knees “Yet they’re always friendly, and they’re ready to please …” — Monty Python MADISON, Wis.—Somewhere in the Kunlun mountains that roughly divide China proper from its puppet state of Tibet lies the imaginary paradise of Shangri-La, where life is…
by David Benjamin “Mothers of River City!/ Heed that warning before it’s too late!/ Watch for the tell-tale signs of corruption!/ The minute your son leaves the house/ Does he re-buckle his knickerbockers below the knee?/ Is there a nicotine stain on his index finger?/ A dime novel hidden in the corn crib?/ Is he…
by David Benjamin “Scenes We’d Like to See” — MAD magazine [Lights. Camera, Action] A gloomy brain trust is gathered in the Oval Office. Steve and Natalie hover near the Resolute desk, where the president is slumped in his easy chair, taking a power nap. “The Democrats are due any minute. We need a plan,…
by David Benjamin “All parental rights are reserved to the parent of a minor child in this state without obstruction or interference from the state, any of its political subdivisions, any other governmental entity, or any other institution …” —Section 3, Parents Bill of Rights, Parental Rights Foundation MAYBERRY—Andy Taylor, Chairman of the School Board,…
by David Benjamin “People sleep peacefully in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.” — Kristi Noem MADISON, Wis.—Okay, so you’re watching a re-run of the peerless Jerry Orbach in “Law and Order,” or soaking up Mark Harmon’s neo-Joe Friday shtick in “NCIS.” The trusty good…
by David Benjamin “You can either be Southern or you can be smart and successful.” — Landon Bryant MADISON, Wis.—Perhaps incongruously, as I navigate the waves of eulogies to the wondrous Dolly Parton, I think of the film, A Time to Kill. In the climactic scene, in the trial of a black man who shot…
by David Benjamin MADISON, Wis.—John Milton loved the Devil. In literary history, Milton was the most pious and passionate of Christian poets, a devout believer and a pillar of the Church. But he was simultaneously a complicated intellectual with boundless curiosity and a devotion to artistic rigor. For Milton, it would have been illegitimate to…
by David Benjamin “A penny saved is still just a fucking penny.” —Dan Lok MADISON, Wis.—One of the drawbacks of vegetating in front of the TV after a hard day at the keyboard is the intrusion—and merciless repetition—of ads that seem conceived to rankle my nerves and make me talk back to the screen. For…
by David Benjamin “Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.” — Frederick Douglass MADISON, Wis.—To fill my class schedule in my last college semester, I signed up, reluctantly, for a course entitled “Leadership Lore.” My professor, whose specialty was classics, steered his students toward ancient conquerors like Cyrus the…
by David Benjamin “Man may penetrate the outer reaches of the universe, he may solve the very secret of eternity itself but for me, the ultimate human experience is to witness the flawless execution of the hit-and-run.” — Branch Rickey MADISON, Wis.—The saturation coverage of the recent World Cup featured fans from all over the…