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
“Isn’t it funny how day by day nothing changes, but when you look back everything is different.” — C.S. Lewis PARIS — We’ve lost an oasis. We had a pretty faithful routine. Each time we’ve flown into Paris, we climb to our aerie atop the Fifth Arrondissement, settle in and take an afternoon anti-jet…
by David Benjamin “Stairs can kill us, if we do not walk circumspectly.” — Blaise Pascal PARIS — When I’m out and around, I don’t think about the stairs. I just face them when I get home and slog my way up—more slowly than when we bought this place—five floors up and just beneath the…
by David Benjamin “They framed an ad that is chilling and kind of classic in its way. It features a portrait of this very scary looking, disheveled, wild-eyed black man. As [Lee] Atwater once said, by the end of this campaign, you’re going to think that Willie Horton is Michael Dukakis’ running mate.” — Bill…
by David Benjamin “A clear conscience is the sure sign of a bad memory.” — Mark Twain MADISON, Wis. — Last weekend at my 55th-year high-school reunion, I drifted from the crowd and found, alone at a table, a woman whose name tag—featuring her 1967 yearbook photo—read Linda. Hesitantly, I sat with her.…
by David Benjamin “On TV the people can see it. On radio you’ve got to create it.” — Bob Uecker MADISON, Wis. — I’m not Ohio State. I’ve been an avid Green Bay Packers fan since I was twelve, but, despite repeated suggestions by TV color commentators like Daryl Johnston, I am not—personally—the…
by David Benjamin “We are going to have a long-term worker shortage. So, bringing back high-labor content products doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.” — Sen. Ron Johnson MADISON, Wis. — One of the capitalists myths punctured by the Covid-19 pandemic was the efficiency of the global supply chain, which allowed corporations to…
by David Benjamin “If they give you ruled paper, write the other way” —Juan Ramon Jimenez, quoted by Ray Bradbury in Fahrenheit 451 MADISON, Wis. — Nobody is quite sure whether the school board in Keller, Texas has “officially” banned from its libraries the Bible and The Diary of Anne Frank. They seem to…
by David Benjamin “The Negro race has had enough trouble, more than enough of its share of injustice, oppression, tragedy, suffering and sorrow. And because of the social progress which Negroes achieved in the face of these handicaps, it is best that The Birth of a Nation in its present form be withheld from public…
by David Benjamin “In the fell clutch of circumstance I have not winced nor cried aloud. Under the bludgeonings of chance My head is bloody, but unbowed…” —William Ernest Henley, “Invictus” MADISON, Wis. — Jeez Louise, whatever became of the strong, silent type? For all my life, and yours, the first commandment of…
by David Benjamin “Hot town, summer in the city? Back of my neck getting dirty and gritty…” —John Sebastian MADISON, Wis. — You don’t have to guess what city John Sebastian was thinking about when he — along with Steve Boone and his brother Mark — wrote “ … All around, people looking half-dead, Walking on…