IN THE WILDE’S OF NORTH AMERICA
NAME-DROPPING OSCAR WILDE in my recent tale of Horace and Baby Doe Tabor calls for learning more about Wilde’s 1882 tour of North America. Indeed, a fellow named John Cooper … Continue reading
PARIS OUT OF HAND
YOU’D SUSPECT THAT, despite its Baedeker’s-like red cover, Karen Elizabeth Gordon’s Paris Out of Hand is not your ordinary guidebook. For one thing, the Eiffel Tower is upside down. For … Continue reading
KOREAN TIDBITS, OLD AND NEW, GOOD AND BAD
MORE THAN 71 YEARS separate us from the outbreak of the Korean War, the subject of several of today’s tidbits. Another tidbit is as recent as The New York Times, … Continue reading
GLUBB PASHA—A SECOND LAWRENCE OF ARABIA
SIR JOHN BAGOT GLUBB was a British soldier who trained and led Transjordan’s Arab Legion between 1939 and 1956. Controversially, the Legion had several victories against Israel in the 1948 … Continue reading
РУССКИЕ БИТЫ
I’M NOT SURE what prompted my purchase of Barron’s Russian at a Glance, 2001. I had already experienced a significant Russian adventure in 1990, visiting the crumbling Soviet Union, as … Continue reading
SWISS ADVENTURES
ENJOYING FRANCIS DURBRIDGE’S “Paul Temple and the Geneva Mystery,” I got to thinking about other Swiss adventures. Here are tidbits about a couple of my own Swiss adventures, augmented with … Continue reading
只是平躺 (JUST LYING FLAT)
INDEED, THERE ARE times when chilling out is the appropriate response. Even in the People’s Republic of China. Details are given in Elsie Chen’s “These Chinese Millennials are ‘Chilling,’ and … Continue reading
WHAT IF OFFICER FIDO IS A WUSS?
POLICE DOGS HAVE to be capable of a certain level of aggression. How else to command the respect they deserve? So what to do if Fido happens to be a … Continue reading
AZTEC TIDBITS
WIFE DOTTIE AND I had a brief encounter with Nahautl, the Aztec language, during our first session of Community College Japanese class. As a first example, Sensei-san taught us “Watashi … Continue reading
JUST DON’T CALL HIM “OPPA”
“A VICIOUS CANCER,” said Kim Jong-un, “is corrupting attire, hairstyles, speeches, behaviors.” State media warned that, if unchecked, North Korea would “crumble like a damp wall.” Image by Bloomberg from … Continue reading
Simanaitis Says 