Marilyn Monroe in Fukuoka, Japan, 1954   The satellite trucks were set up across the alley, ready to broadcast the news, which is not complete this morning, but clear enough. Ten percent is enough to keep her alive.   She is never going to leave him alone. She beat him yesterday, and even if she […]

Something momentous is going to happen today, so big and significant that nothing at all happened across the alley from our Headquarters. Nothing at all.   Of course, the weather may have been a factor, and kept the smokers pinned against the side of the building to maximize their coverage from the rain. The weather […]

  San Jose? Anaheim?   I have been to both towns, and like them. There is a sort of la-la air of heaven about the first, and a sort of gritty sun-drenched determination about the latter.   I am always surprised to find that they have hockey teams, even though the gritty Ducks won Lord […]

  The rains did cometh, and it is soft and the earth smells are wafting up the side of Big Pink. There is life in the air, and the sound of birds.   A child is making noises in wonder from the balcony above my open window, and her parents are speaking softly in Arabic. […]

  It has been a pretty good run for the United States Navy in the big harbor south of Yokohama. Commodore Perry arrived there in 1853 in his flagship USS Powhattan, and was fairly abrupt with the Takugawa Shogun’s people, insisting on presenting gifts to the irrelevant Emperor. Perry’s visit, under the cannons that bristled from […]

  The politics of this day are small ones, and of little import to the wide world, though once they did. The professional association to which I belong holds one of it’s two annual events today, at the Crowne Plaza in Mr. Tyson’s Corners in Northern Virginia.   It used to be a Holiday Inn, […]

King Christian X of Denmark   The Secret Service was gone by four, as was the security detail from the Arlington Police Force.   I had been checking in on them every couple hours with mild curiosity as they loitered across the alley from our glittering new building and the down-at-the heels former government glass […]

The Pope is in town, carrying his campaign of tough love to the American branch of his sometimes fractious flock. I am not going to try to get to the stadium downtown tomorrow, though I have to pass by during the day, and will be on my toes.   They called the Holy Father the […]

 de-FIB-ulator Hand-held Lie Detector (TG286L) $38.00   It is tax day, and the anniversary of the morning after Mr. Lincoln’s bad night at Ford’s Theater and RMS Titanic’s plunge into the icy waters southeast of Newfoundland.   Normally, I would wander off with you to explore the back bedroom of Peterson’s Boarding House, which is a sobering […]

I was Sunday-edgy all afternoon. Amazing how fast the weekend goes, even though I hunkered down in self-enforced isolation in the small town that is Big Pink. The invisible Girlfriend was more invisible than usual, and the weather had turned from balmy to chill, belying the brilliant green of the blossoms.   They were precisely […]