Cover of White Men Can’t Jump
I missed a lot of movies during my long life as a wage slave, working usually at night. In retirement, I hope to make up for a lot of missed movies.
Tonight I saw the urban basketball movie, “White Men Can’t Jump,” for the first time ever. What a great story! What trash talk! Male bonding! Best music sound track of a sports movie since “Bull Durham.” Best romantic scenes in a sports movie since “Bull Durham.” I measure all movies by the “Bull Durham” standard.
United Parcel Service (Photo credit: Dust Storm)
Santa Claus is legendary for customer satisfaction and on-time Christmas Eve performance.
UPS package delivery, despite its ubiquitous brown trucks . . . not so much.
Thousands — probably hundreds of thousands — of gifts failed to arrive in time for Christmas. Don’t blame Santa. Continue reading
Two stories of our times may have passed nearly unnoticed in the Christmas Eve edition of The Washington Post. If you find yourself with a few quiet moments for reading, today or maybe tomorrow, I recommend the following from the 12-24-13 Post.
“Edward Snowden: I Already Won,” on Page One. It’s a long read, but it pulls the whole Snowden- NSA story together with some clarity.
And “How robots are stealing our jobs,” the chilling story in Economy & Business, page A13. Continue reading
Living simply is always a work in progress. — John
A friend of mine once said, in a moment of frustration, “I just want to be homeless. I want to walk away from everything and live on the street.” Then he added, “Sounds crazy, doesn’t it?” Sometimes I wonder if anyone can pursue money and material rewards and remain sane. I mean, of course, we all need food, shelter and a few other things to survive, yet, what is life when we give over to the mere pursuit of a lifestyle?
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Every politician who repeats platitudes like “promote economic growth” and “good jobs” needs an education in economic reality. An excellent place to start would be Umair Haque’s piece in the Harvard Business Review blog. Continue reading
Snow. You gotta love it. Unless you hate it. It’s your choice. This is, after all, still a free country — more or less — depending on which of the 50 states you’re living in or traveling through. Your mileage may vary.
Winter has arrived in Maryland, and it’s nasty. (Technically, it’s not winter until the Winter Solstice on Dec. 21, but let’s not be technical.) Continue reading
The peacoat is back in style, after all these years. I feel suddenly youthful.
Navy peacoats — and all manner of surplus military clothing — were trendy in the immediate post-hippie era of the early 1970s. I found mine at — where else — an Army-Navy surplus store. It was the cool place to shop.
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)
My peacoat was dark blue-black and had authentic Navy anchor buttons. It was solid wool and it wore like iron. Continue reading
I promised myself I wasn’t going to let this happen in the new apartment. Famous last words.
On the positive side, the sink is small — you might even say tiny, as kitchen sinks go — so it limits the number of dirty dishes that can pile up. Plus, I left most of the dishes at the old apartment. How many dishes does one bachelor need? Continue reading
Feels like I’ve been partly cut off from the world for a few weeks. Finally had cable TV and internet installed in the new apartment this afternoon. I can resume blogging. Taking requests.
Wow. Now that’s what I’m talking about. A moving meditation by Laura Sewall. Is it poetry or prose? It would be easier to read with some paragraph breaks, but that’s the only change I’d make. I wish I could write half that well. Even ten percent that well. — John
“Crickets call to the east. A chopper ratchets a mile to the west. I sit in the middle, my left ear seduced by the soft cadence, the evershifting song of crickets in spring. My right ear is hollowed out, hard, both braced against and invaded by the clipped din of machinery. I am beginning to cry. I have felt the breath and nudge of the Dreamtime and know that it is beyond my threshold of perception, just beyond my reach, just a slip of consciousness away. I long for my serpentine thirst to be quenched by the dreaming, long for the look and feel of ultimate belonging and the sensuous play of being embedded, in bed with the world, dug in and dirty. But the phone rings, my endless list of things to do nags, haunts, and fills my consciousness. I too perceive the invisibles. In this case, they are…
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Living Simply And Still On The Grid 