ETYMOLOGY: TINHORN, TIN-POT
FOR A WHILE there, I thought I had completed my Etymology for Our Times series. (Google “SimanaitisSays Etymology” for a sampling.) However, on July 4, the bone-spur-challenged president’s reality TV … Continue reading
ON OPIOIDS PART 2
OPIOID ADDICTION IS plaguing the country. Tidbits on this epidemic are gleaned at SimanaitisSays yesterday and today from “A Blizzard of Prescriptions,” by Emily Witt in the London Review of … Continue reading
ON OPIOIDS PART 1
IN 1984 I suffered from an extruded disc. The extreme pain of this malady introduced me to hydrocodone-based Vicodin, a painkiller that helped me through the problem. A standup art … Continue reading
GETTING EVEN—THEATRICALLY PART 2
WHEN WE LEFT Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais, his life of French polymath/entrepreneur was complicated by a court case involving business dealings with the late Joseph Paris Duverney. Today in Part … Continue reading
GETTING EVEN—THEATRICALLY PART 1
APART FROM BEING a spy, diplomat, arms dealer, and revolutionary (French and American), playwright Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais sure know how to get even. His means of revenge? His theatrical … Continue reading
THE END OF AMERICAN WORLD ORDER?
OCCASIONALLY THE London Review of Books baffles me with (its understandable) focus on British matters. It reminds me of “Fog Shrouds Channel; Continent Isolated.” Most times, though, I find the … Continue reading
A TALE OF TWO BOUQUINISTES
I’VE ENJOYED encounters with bouquinistes, booksellers offering their wares along the Seine in Paris. One result is a kid’s magazine, titled Tintin—Le Journal des Jeunes de 7 à 77 ans. … Continue reading
OUTSOARING THE RING
I HAVE FOUND something more outre than Wagner’s Die Ring des Nibelungen. True, The Ring Cycle is 17 unique hours filled with Valhalla’s Gods and Goddesses, the Nibelung underground’s evil … Continue reading
THE GREAT AMERICAN SONGBOOK CLICKS ITS HEELS PART 2
TODAY IN PART 2, we pick up our Great American Songbook celebration of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in two more of their musicals from the mid-1930s. We’ll also encounter … Continue reading
THE GREAT AMERICAN SONGBOOK CLICKS ITS HEELS PART 1
A RECENT London Review of Books article celebrates Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in three of their ten classic movies: Top Hat, 1935; Swing Time, 1936; and Shall We Dance, … Continue reading
