Author Archives: Pete

African MiGs

I developed an interest years ago after seeing one take off in Guinea. The first volume, alas, I left at my quarantined school, but here are three interesting sentences from the second: Canada, keen to gain a foothold in Tanzania since 1963, took the place of West Germany and in 1965 launched a project worth […]

Condition

Haha. An american friend of mine thought I was singing I’m a baby sea tuna instead of “I’m on BBC2 now.” https://t.co/cP3kAMtwgK — Αλεξ Καπράνος (@alkapranos) March 24, 2020 If you’re around at 6pm Eastern, or whatever time elsewhere, do attend these listening parties. I listened to the Franz Ferdinand one last night. The Blur […]

Saucy Kip

I watched the film Hired Gun, about session musicians. As this review accurately puts it, “two sorts of audience member are especially well-served here: metal heads and devotees of Billy Joel.” It kept my interest nonetheless. Certainly, in the topsy-turvy world of heavy rock, I was not shocked to learn that one can go directly […]

Waxing Gibbon

In the fourth year of the reign of Donald Augustus, when plague overtook his subjects, some purchased motor-wagons whose girth comprehended beyond the fairest part of their stables.  – “Bigger and Bigger SUVs, Pickups Are Outgrowing Home Garages, Public Parking Spaces,” USA Today, March 5, 2020  

Cinq-Mars

By the morning’s end, the survivors were ordered to retreat. Mr. Cinq-Mars helped another wounded soldier onto a landing craft. “I grabbed the chain to pull myself up. Then five or six guys came running from the beach; they banged my head and pushed me underwater and then the boat started to back up and […]

Winter Campaign

The state of affairs having displeased me, I drove up to New Hampshire on Sundays to volunteer for one of the candidates. This was my most substantive engagement with a presidential campaign since reading What It Takes. On my first afternoon, I walked in and introduced myself to another volunteer. Amiable guy, and we talked […]

Three Wise Men

The other day I remarked to a colleague that because I’m teaching English, History, Science, and Math, I feel like a polymath, or at least the 6th grade version of one. Look on my adequate integration of knowledge and understanding, ye Mighty, and despair! *** A while back I read a biography of Paul McCartney. […]