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
Roger Goodell, Commissioner National Football League 345 Park Avenue New York NY 10154 Dear Mr. Goodell: I’m writing to you about a National Football League problem of which you are likely unaware and to which you are unlikely to seek a solution. Indeed, as with most of the occasional missives I address to the rich…
by David Benjamin “The Naming of Cats is a difficult matter, “It isn’t just one of your holiday games…” —T.S. Eliot MADISON, Wis.—If there’s any silver lining in America’s descent toward strongman despotism, it’s the left wing’s opportunity to undertake a linguistic reset, to heed Thoreau’s advice: “Simplify, simplify.” The people who uneasily call ourselves…
by David Benjamin “… Justice Merchan made clear that even if the sentencing were to go forward, he would not recommend any kind of prison sentence or home confinement.” —Maggie Haberman, NY Times, 5 Jan. ‘25 MADISON, Wis.—The inhabitants of “Earth One”—immune to the fantasy world of “X,” Fox News, Truth Social, OAN, InfoWars and…
by David Benjamin “Under those blue pajamas was a shape to set a man nuts … ” —James M. Cain, Double Indemnity MADISON, Wis.—Recently, as I watched the opening credits of the 1944 classic, Double Indemnity, I suddenly whispered, “Wow!” The writers listed for the movie—based on James M. Cain’s darkly compelling novel—were Raymond Chandler…
by David Benjamin “Strange things have happened of late and are still happening. Some of these tend to dim the lustre of the American name, and chill the hopes once entertained for the cause of American liberty. He is a wiser man than I am, who can tell how low the moral sentiment of this…
by David Benjamin “These [AI] methods only work in areas where things are empirically true, like math and science. The humanities and the arts, moral and philosophical problems are much more difficult.” — Dylan Patel, chief analyst, SemiAnalysis, MADISON, Wis.—For most of my career, I’ve been a slave to technology. This bondage began in earnest…
by David Benjamin “… The president-elect has 96.2 million followers on X, while Mr. Musk has 207.9 million. (Mr. Musk is also far richer than Mr. Trump. According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, he is worth $458 billion, while the president-elect is worth a mere $6.61 billion.)…” — NY Times, 19 Dec. MADISON, Wis.—Once, one…
by David Benjamin We gotta send Santa Claus back to the Rescue Mission. Christmas don’t make it no more. Don’t you know that murder and destruction Scream the toys in every store… — Frank Zappa Ralphie was too old to believe in Santa Claus but zero hour was approaching and he couldn’t afford to risk…
by David Benjamin “It was difficult for me to see the relationship between public morals and public toilets, as to me those facilities had been more a matter of convenience than of sex.” —Christine Jorgensen MADISON, Wis.—Come here once. Follow me into the boys’ room. I know, it’s a scary place—where dead-end kids go to…
by David Benjamin “When a person has a poor ear for music he will flat and sharp right along without knowing it. He keeps near the tune, but is not the tune. When a person has a poor ear for words, the result is a literary flatting and sharping; you perceive what he is intending…