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 “We’ve always thought knowledge was naught. We should be taught to dance! Right here in Tait, we’re up-to-date. We teach a great new dance! Don’t think that I brag. I speak of the drag!” —June Allyson MADISON, Wis.—Hollywood musicals, particularly the classics, croon to me a Siren’s song but, after the finale,…
by David Benjamin “How low can you go?” —Chubby Checker WASHINGTON D.C.—Smedley, who has been my undercover informant in the nation’s capital since Nancy Reagan’s astrologer, is nervous now because he has, somewhat reluctantly, come in from the cold. He has an actual salaried job in the second reich of Donald Trump and even an…
by David Benjamin “Keep your eyes glued to that set until the station signs off. I can assure you that what you will observe is a vast wasteland. You will see a procession of game shows, formula comedies about totally unbelievable families, blood and thunder, mayhem, violence, sadism, murder, western bad men, western good men,…
by David Benjamin “No more ashes, no more sackcloth, and an armband made of black cloth Will someday never more adorn a sleeve, For if the Bomb that drops on you gets your friends and neighbors, too. There’ll be nobody left behind to grieve, And we will all go together when we go … ”…
by David Benjamin “An honest propagandist for any Cause, that is, one who honestly studies and figures out the most effective way of putting over his Message, will learn fairly early that it is not fair to ordinary folks—it just confuses them—to try to make them swallow all the true facts that would be suitable…
by David Benjamin “I want you all to get up out of your chairs, I want you to get up right now and go to the window, open it, stick your head out and yell, ‘I’m mad as hell and I’m not gonna take this anymore!’” —Howard Beale (Peter Finch), Network, 1976 MADISON, Wis.—Everybody recognizes…
by David Benjamin “The dogs were tearing at the girls’ bodies. Irma [Grese] came closer to observe what they were doing. Her eyes were bloodshot. The sight of the blood seemed to intoxicate her. She panted. She was sexually excited—everybody could see that. We stood in a trance, as at a gladiatorial combat.” —Gisella Perl,…
by David Benjamin But Mousie, thou art no thy-lane, In proving foresight may be vain: The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men Gang aft agley, An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain, For promis’d joy! — Robert Burns Eighteen years ago, when mobile telephony was only “3G” and “smartphones” were still…
by David Benjamin “… You may never know which colleague posted your address on the internet or which neighbor anonymously reported your undocumented status to ICE. But, say, when those immigration agents show up at your asylum hearing, you can bet that at least some of them will be wearing masks and hiding their identities,…
by David Benjamin “… [Kilmar] Abrego García and [Jennifer] Vasquez Sura — who had married through a glass partition at the ICE detention center… ” ― Washington Post, 19 Apr. MADISON, Wis.—On our lavatory wall in Paris, there’s one of those “What’s wrong with this picture?” puzzles. There are, in the photo, about two dozen…