Santa Clara At the moment, I am, if not bright eyed and bushy tailed, at least unpacked and connected to the internet in Santa Clara, California, at an anonymous Marriott hotel just five long blocks from the Convention Center where I have to be at eight o’clock. It is just past two AM local time, […]

May Day The call-sign “May Day” is an international distress signal. I know why. I’m was in a Fairfield Inn off exit 28 of the PA Turnpike, last night, since I would have died if I kept driving. College Commencement yesterday morning in Ann Arbor; the day before was Petoskey, Michigan, fixing my Mom’s computer, and the day […]

Lunch In Boston I got up before it is human to do so to get to Boston. The Conference and the taxi were waiting, the phone ringing as I was just buckling my belt. Too soon. I was going to forget something. The Conference could wait, since I could fudge my arrival if necessary. What […]

Combat Zone I didn’t think of it as I walked. It is a grand town, and construction is everywhere. There are people on the streets and cranes thrusting up all around. The old city is still there, at least some of it, and looking at it kept my mind off the pain in my knees radiated […]

Gallipoli It is ANZAC day, ninety years precisely since they waded up on the shore at Gallipoli. Forgive me if I drift a little in my thoughts. I need to travel this week, and the next, and I think back to other trips and other destinations. I have approached Australia from west and east, from the […]

Catchy Tunes Young Joseph Ratzinger, now the Holy Father, would have sung the Horst Wessel Leid, just like the other kids. Perhaps he did it unwillingly, but someone would have noticed if he did not and reported him. The old Brownshirt Anthem to the punk to died in the street fighting other punks was appended to […]

Good News, Bad News It is a good news, bad news morning. I am up too early, a function of going to bed the same way. But it is raining, and will rain all day, which means there will be time for napping. So there is an upside to this time of creativity, in that […]

Rain, Rain I threw open the door to the patio and stepped out. I could smell earth, rich and musty. The rain had been coming down all night, and the division between dry and wet under the overhang of the deck over my patio was indeterminate, uncertain. I looked out past the pool and the […]

Succession I’ll touch lightly on the biggest event of the week, which is not the sad loss of the Nationals under the lights last night to the Marlins, nor the prospect of the violent thunderstorms that could come with the collision of cold air with humid mass that has brought temperatures almost to the 90s. It is […]

Smoke Signals Everyone looked for smoke today, looking up at the roof of the Sistine Chapel. They got it right this morning, dark and thick, which they did not yesterday. The burning of the first ballot by the Conclave of Cardinals was ambiguous. The crowd began to shout with anticipation, since the first whiffs from […]