Rummaging through a box of old knick-knacks I came upon a pocket watch. Pocket watches seem to have gone out with the Lindy and the speakeasy. It’s a shame, isn’t it? There is a certain dignity invoked when one is asked for the time and fashioning a response first begins with a knowing, slightly superior glance followed by a tug of a chain, not unlike the (more…)
They live secure in our vault where everything we hold dear is ferociously guarded. We understand their importance, their irreplaceability. Make no mistake, we appreciate their value. We know this as instinctively as a hungry child reaches to suckle her mother’s breast. The way we act, what we feel, our perceptions, our jealousies and our fears all possess a direct line to them. Often we close our eyes and drift, opening the vault in search of (more…)
Every August Beloit College publishes what they call The Mindset List. It’s a puddle of facts designed to illuminate the rest of us about things which help shape the worldview of the incoming college freshman class. (The most recent list contained such sobering thoughts as “Amazon has never been just a river in South America” and “The Communist Party has never been the official political party in Russia.”) But the list does more than that. It also shows (more…)
