My grandfather carved the beef and then a servant handed him a dish of potatoes baked in their skins. There are few things better to eat than a potato in its skin, with plenty of butter, but apparently my grandfather did not think so. He rose in his chair at the head of the […]
Author Archives: Pete
Greetings
There’s also a much-loved tradition of using our landing lights to greet fellow pilots in the world’s most remote skies, where we might cruise for hours without seeing another aircraft. Then, perhaps from 40 miles away or more, we spot the strobe lights of an aircraft approaching at a different altitude. I reach up […]
Signal Values 4
Got it. Oh, honey… Commonwealth Books: on the road to Damascus. If that’s how you want to go. Wouldn’t “one of the most successful of the pantodonts” made for a kinder introduction? (See also: Signal Values 3)
Clipperton
I got this globe at a yard sale. Whenever I see students looking at it, I ask if they’re lost. The other day I noticed France has an island off the coast of Mexico. This was news to me, so I looked it up. It used to be called – ooh la la – […]
Shamrocks and Shenanigans
The twins have become enamored of making slime. The other day Twin 2 looked up from hers and said: “Did the elf die yet?” Now, the thing about Twin 2 is, she gets furious if she has to repeat herself more than once. It’s not the Achillean rage of when she was two, but […]
Ned Vizzini
Years ago I taught in a middle school in Brooklyn. One afternoon a week the kids would read silently – well, that was the idea – from a classroom library kept in a wheeled locker. One day a girl held up the book she was reading and said she’d emailed the author, who replied […]
Cabul
One is reading the Bible. It’s frightfully good, you know. -VS Naipaul I’ve been reading the Bible, and doing it the way they say you shouldn’t do it, reading it straight through. It’s tough going, and there’s a lot I don’t get. I may break down and get one of those “How to […]
Doom! Shake the Room
1. Apart From That, Mr. Brzezinski At 3a.m. on 9 November 1979, [National Security Advisor Zbigniew] Brzezinski was telephoned at home by his military assistant, William Odom, who told him that he had just heard on his communications net that 200 Soviet missiles had been launched against the United States … He told Odom […]