Sunday 7/26/26 I was doing stairs today in the Bunker Hill Monument, as I have for ten years. There were three aggressively rude women who created a problem I've never had in those ten years. You wonder what has go wrong with the world and for people in that world to act as these three did. When I go up and down the stairs, I do the same thing every time. I stay as close to the wall on the right as possible. When going up, I flatten my body against said wall, making like a fl

Sunday 7/26/26 There's an episode of Cheers where the gang is discussing the worst way to die. I referenced this in an op-ed somewhere. Frasier eventually pipes in and says, "Dying alone, knowing that you've never been loved," thinking he has the clincher, and troubled by the knowledge of it. The others laugh at him because they've been tossing stuff out there like sliding down a greased razor banister. I think about this joke--for it is a joke, but, like the the best jokes,

Sunday 7/26/26 Nice to see the temperature dip into the 50s as I start work early on this Sunday. Rooting for you, autumn. I watched Babysitter Wanted (2008) yesterday morning. I'm thinking about writing something on babysitter-centric horror films. I've made a potential list. Also watched Attack of the Puppet People (1958) for a possible piece on drive-in horror movies. The list for that one includes Hell Night (1981), Targets (1968), Ruby (1977), Drive-In Massacre (1976), T

Saturday 7/25/26 LeBron James will be playing for the Philadelphia 76ers next season. Somewhat of a surprise. Looked like the Sixers were a distant-enough fourth in terms of likelihood of landing spots, after Cleveland, Miami, and Golden State. Interestingly for Celtics fans, it was the team adding Jaylen Brown that swayed James. The former has had a once-in-a-lifetime off-season. He goes from sixth in MVP voting with Boston, to being moved by Boston, and now he's on a champi

Friday 7/24/26 A rule in society, to which there are few exceptions, is to defend that which is bad and that which is stupid, if anything is to be defended (and upheld) at all. Ours is a world of inversion in which unnatural order is the order of the day. Where good is bad, bad is good, not funny is funny, funny isn't even understood, mediocrity is sublimity, sublimity doesn't exist and wouldn't be noticed and understood if it did. Whenever I see someone smart enough, if you

Thursday 7/23/26 I know they’re technically an invasive species—not like it’s their fault—but how can’t you be a fan of house sparrows? So full of resolve and good at hopping and neck-tilting and inquisitive looks. Watched Earth vs. the Flying Saucers (1956) again and am writing a piece on it now. It's playing at the Brattle next month, too, and hopefully I'll be able to get over there and see it on the big screen. T.S. Eliot didn't write a lot of poetry. There aren't that ma

Thursday 7/23/26 The word "literally" is infiltrating commercials now. We're so linguistically impoverished. We can't say what we want to say. Even with the limited things we have to say. So we say "Literally." Tom Caron is saying it now on the NESN Red Sox broadcasts as well. There's so much out there now but so little of it that you can actually read. I don't just mean books, online articles. Everyone has a Substack about everything. I'm also talking what I'll call online d

Wednesday 7/22/26 If I had pulled a mini-Rip Van Winkle and passed out in the woods for a month and emerged to learn that the 2026 Boston Red Sox had just won 15 games in a row, as they now have, my incredulity would have been as vast as that forest. Tied with the 1946 Red Sox for longest in franchise history! I'm certainly not comparing these teams, but do you know how awesome the '46 Sox were? They won 104 games when the season was only 154. The most surprising long winning

Wednesday 7/22/26 I posted something somewhere about how a part inside of me dies each time I see an "of" for "have." As in, "should of." Someone then commented very seriously and calmly that "should've" is the contraction produced from "should of." They honestly thought they were helping to educate me. And now you know. If I post something that has an idea in it, far fewer people hit the like button. If I post something sans idea, that is a simple statement, or what someone

Tuesday 7/21/26 People really overrate Kobe Bryant. It's because of other things, like so many things. The persona--you know, the "Black Mamba" thing. A lack of understanding of the game. And its history. Bryant was a poor man's Michael Jordan. You'd have a hard time getting him into the top twenty players of all-time. He was too "me first and last," too high volume, too one-dimensional, not a leader, didn't make his teammates better. A rich man's Carmelo Anthony. Got credit

Tuesday 7/21/26 Something that I think about. It'll pass through my mind. Maybe I should say it reoccurs to me, because I don't need to give it additional thought, as I now know it to be true. But that suggests one ought not to think about thinks once they're known to be true, and that doesn't make sense, either. I guess it matters on the nature of the thing. One encounters truths in a great work of art, one thinks about the truths and should until the end. Perhaps beyond, fo

Monday 7/20/26 Got to North Station, bought my round trip ticket, entered the waiting area which voids your ticket for future use, waited to get my train to go to the dentist, and then they canceled the train. Called Dr. Raffy's office and left a message explaining the situation, asking what they wanted me to do and that I'd stick around and wait for the next train--which was an hour later--until I heard from them. He eventually called and had me reschedule. I could have gone

Monday 7/20/26 Want to know something somewhat dark? I have a very nice mug from my desk with the Bunker Hill Monument on it. It's sat there for years. I've never drank out of it, because I feel like I haven't done well enough in the Monument running my stairs to deserve it. That's how I am. And if that's how I am with the likes of this, one can imagine how I am with my work, regarding which I'm exponentially more demanding. The work, when seen, speaks for itself for what it

Sunday 7/19/26 I was sitting in the cafe reading yesterday. There were three girls at the table next to me--young high school students, probably going into their sophomore year. They seemed like nice kids. Not mean or anything as they talked about the things kids this age have always talked about. A break-up, for instance, of two of their classmates. But these girls could hardly go a sentence without using the word "literally." Like they were incapable of talking without it.

Thursday 7/16/26 You see it all the time now: "I hate living in this timeline" and variations thereof. Here we have a basic word and concept that people are no longer able to understand. They don't know what a timeline actually is. And the more that people say these things like the above, the more other people say these things, and the further everyone gets from ever being able to understand this simple thing like so many other simple things. Then this stupid and wrong thin

Thursday 7/16/26 The fourth-to-last thing you want to be in this world is virtuous. The third-to-last thing you want to be in this world is intelligent. The second-to-last thing you want to be in this world is great. The very last thing you want to be in this world is a combination of the above. The more you're any of these things, the worse it is. That's the sliding scale.

Thursday 7/16/26 I'll search all kinds of things online. Sometimes they're things I know, but I want to see what comes up anyway. As we erase the idea of humanness from the world, and of course intelligence, literacy, effort, skill, vision, and even thinking at the most basic of levels, we attempt to rewrite reality so that stupidity, illiteracy, sloth, having no abilities, echo chambers, and never thinking are positives. This better serves the masses. Each of us has become a

Thursday 7/16/26 Got an early start. That's something. Endless posts about the World Cup. People have nothing to say but they want to say something. So they post the score. Or say, "Go England." Millions of such posts. Billions. Maybe more than billions. Babble, babble, babble. Into the great sea of babble go all the voices of the people with nothing to say. And the noise roars in the ears. Drowns out all else, what little there is of it. I'm not interested in the World Cup.

Wednesday 7/15/26 There’s a sulfurous hue to Boston today befitting the times. Like a coloristic contrapasso. The air is acrid. It's because of the wildfires in Canada, but there's more to it than that, if you ask me. I feel like I've been under siege this summer with extra things. The weather. It's roasting again today. Now this apocalyptic aspect to the sky. Was here yesterday as well, but worse today. It's obvious that everything is off and wrong in the world. Or it should

Wednesday 7/15/26 Ah, but for a draught of vintage--by which I mean, unsweetened cranberry juice for me--with John Falstaff at the Boar's Head Inn and the trading of japes with kernels of truth. F. Scott Fitzgerald had a section in his Notebooks titled, "Feelings & Emotions (without girls)," in which he could make it no further than the fifth entry before they started to become about...well, what do you think? Adam West starred in a Perry Mason episode about a stolen first ed

Wednesday 7/15/26 Saw a decent amount of the All-Star Game last night in between other things I was doing (listening to the Grateful Dead's 10/23/72 Milwaukee performance, watching a documentary on H.P. Lovecraft). It was a tough watch and listen. My interest for a while was in whether the National League would be no hit, which I thought was definitely on the table. Baseball has a strike out problem. It's a huge problem in my estimation. The strike out problem is made worse b

Tuesday 7/14/26 Most people go their entire lives without saying a single witty or funny thing. Wit is beyond their mental and creative capabilities (wit also requires wisdom as to who and how we are), and if the humor happens, it will be by accident and not design, with the laugh being on them. Nor is humor subjective. Nothing is subjective. There's what we're able to discern because of our abilities and what we're not able to because of our shortcomings. But every thing is

Monday 7/13/26 Had an uncomfortable night. Picked up a cold a couple days back and did as is my wont and carried on with stairs, etc., as if I hadn't. Was up to nearly two in the morning today as a result. May have made it worse by not taking it easier but if it goes away soon then it would have been worth it to have soldiered on especially as there could be heat issues this week though it looks like tomorrow is going to be the bad day and that the Monument could avoid any sh

Thursday 7/9/26 The only kind of internet headline I'm vulnerable to--that is, one that will almost automatically get me to click on the article--is that pertaining to health; specifically, what might be my health, especially if the topic is about something you can control. I know the answer now and have for a long time, but if I didn't and I saw a headline, "Best teas for heart health," that will get me to go to the article. Almost everything is hack-y, indistinguishable low