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
The ghost of Bessie Smith by David Benjamin “… Oh, how that boy can open clam/ No one else is can touch my ham/ I can’t do without my kitchen man…” — Bessie Smith, “Kitchen Man” MADISON, Wis. — Picture Bessie Smith, belting out one of her bluesy anthems from the ill-lit corner of a…
Where have all the soldiers gone… by David Benjamin MADISON, Wis. — Used to be, you couldn’t swing a dead cat without hitting a GI. Well, a former GI. In the bygone halcyon days of universal conscription, every male had to do his hitch, or get really creative to duck Uncle Sam. My dad, who…
The tortured trees and scary waiters of blvd. St. Germain by David Benjamin PARIS — The Ville de Paris is destroying the evidence. For decades on the boulevard St. Germain, its plucky trees would welcome the spring by putting out new shoots, slender green tendrils reaching hopefully toward the fickle sun. And then, in the…
“Oh Lord, please don’t let me be misunderstood” by David Benjamin “As members of the winning team, Trump supporters have no urgent need to understand the other side.” — Amanda Hess, The New York Times PARIS — Pundits — especially the sensitive, liberal ones — keep telling me how important it is to understand the…
Jack Palance takes charge by David Benjamin “Net neutrality requires internet services providers to charge equal rates and offer equal speeds for all data usage. Without the policy, a telecommunications company — like Pai’s former employer Verizon — would be allowed to impose blocks on websites at its discretion or allow providers to create so-called…
The Thing on the Bedside Table by David Benjamin “Life! Life, do you hear me?! Give my creation LIFE!!” — Dr. Frederick Frankenstein, Young Frankenstein (1974) WASHINGTON D.C. — The beautiful woman with the strangely Oriental eyes, cantilevered cheekbones and subtly protruding lips awoke, as usual, at 4 a.m. and drowsily regarded the thing on…
Knock yourself out, Mom by David Benjamin “Each team will have six to nine players on the field, instead of 11; the field will be far smaller; kickoffs and punts will be eliminated; and players will start each play in a crouching position instead of in a three-point stance.” — New York Times, 31 Jan.…
Imaginary icebergs by David Benjamin “A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic.” — Joseph Stalin MADISON, Wis. — There’s little evidence — even in the alt-right online sixth dimension — that ravening hordes of “illegal aliens” are swarming across the Rio Grande and killing Americans. The firmest numbers I could…
… or the Highway by David Benjamin “He didn’t like it. That song stuck and he couldn’t get it off his shoe. He always thought that song was self-serving and self-indulgent.” — Tina Sinatra, on her father’s opinion of “My Way” MADISON, Wis. — I was impressed, perhaps awestruck, by Rachel Maddow’s restraint on Inauguration…
What Obama and Trump Really Said by David Benjamin (As a service to mankind, Harvey Brusbussen, editor-in-chief of the international hacking organization, IncontinentWiki, has released, exclusively to this reporter, the full transcript of the post-election meeting in the Oval Office between President Barack Obama and President-Elect Donald Trump. Here it is.) Trump: “So, how’d I…