Upcoming Events:
Wednesday, 6 May 9 am
Radio Interview with Phil Nee, on “Jim Otis and Smalltown Crime, WRCO Radio, Richland Center, Wis.
Friday, 29 May, 7 pm
Book Talk, Signing and Sale, on “Upstairs and the Jim Otis Series,” Belleville Books, 20 East Main St., Belleville, Ill.
Saturday, 30 May,1-3 pm
Meet & Greet, Signing & Sale of Last Kid Books, at Belleville Books, 20 East Main St., Belleville, Ill.
The Weekly Screed
Papa’s thumbnail by David Benjamin MADISON, Wis. — My grandfather’s hands fascinated me. Papa, as we called him, put in fifty years at the Milwaukee Road frog shops in Tomah. He was a machinist, repairing switches and the huge steel “frogs” that intersected rail lines. When he arrived home after his eight hours, I would…
Dragnet, 2017 by David Benjamin This is the city. Chicago. Stormy, husky, brawling. Big shoulders, stacker of wheat, hog butcher… You know the drill. My name is Friday. Joe Friday. I’m a cop. My partner, Bill Gannon, and I responded to a routine call about a possible 10-16 at a ninth-floor walkup on the West…
A thousand rings, a single clown by David Benjamin “It’s just that there are all these Sandras running around who you’ve never met before, and it’s confusing at first, fantastic. But damn it, isn’t it great to find out how many Sandras there are? It’s like those little cars in the circus, you know? This…
Deplorable by David Benjamin “… Under these circumstances, an ambitious policy agenda to combat climate change or battle income inequality and persistent poverty seems like a pipe dream. Repairing decaying infrastructure and improving public education will most likely also remain out of reach… ” — Eduardo Porter MADISON, Wis. — There is no analysis that…
The attack of the box spring by David Benjamin “… Miss Glory, robots are not people. They are mechanically much better than we are, they have an amazing ability to understand things, but they don’t have a soul. Young Rossum created something much more sophisticated than Nature ever did — technically at least!… ” —…
“… Have you ever seen a Commie drink a glass of water?” by David Benjamin “Rock ’n’ roll music and why I preach against it. I believe that it is a contributing factor to our juvenile delinquency of today. I know what it does to you. And I know the evil feeling that you feel…
“CHIRP!” by David Benjamin “The job of the newspaper is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.” — Mr. Dooley (Finley Peter Dunne) PARIS — When the press acquiesced to being called “the media,” the door closed on Finley Peter Dunne and opened wide for Billy Bush. Marshall McLuhan introduced the term “medium” to…
Donald Trump’s Parisian sweetheart by David Benjamin “When I was a child, I talked like a child. I thought like a child. I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me.” — 1 Corinthians 13:11 PARIS — My friends in the Trumpkamp think that non-Trumpniks like…
Out to dejeuner by David Benjamin “A good photograph is like a good hound dog, dumb, but eloquent.” — Eugene Atget PARIS — I follow, meekly, the footsteps of Eugene Atget. Atget was the original, essential Parisian, unable to get his fill of the City of Light. In the early days of photography, Atget fed…
Superego by David Benjamin “Hooray, excelsior and pow! The ship of state is sunk and dead, And we, the fools, are at the bow, From which the wise and good have fled.” — Benjie, The Id, 1966 PARIS — Bob Schuster was my first publisher. The imprint was SRTB Ketchachokee Publications. The four letters designated…