The jumbo Sunday crosswords that appear under the imprimatur of the New York Times … had been kicking my butt. Seventeen straight that I failed to complete without a mistake. Making me wonder if the canary had stopped singing in the coal mine of my brain. I completed one on February 20 but, through May […]

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The first week of June brings to mind two history-changing military actions in World War II involving the United States. Arguably the country’s finest hours, when it comes to warfare. –D-Day, June 6, 1944, which was 73 years ago today. –The Battle of Midway, June 4, 1942, Most Americans with a passing knowledge of U.S. […]

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Until a few years ago, this is what I knew of Gustav Mahler. He was a famous composer whose work I had never heard. He was the favorite composer of the eternally snooty television brothers Frasier and Niles Crane, of the long-running show Frasier. (Whenever the two went out for a night, odds were it […]

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A former colleague was driving in Banff, Alberta, looking for a restaurant, when he came to an intersection that spoke to him. Just as it would to most every Baby Boomer who grew up watching Jay Ward Productions on TV. The colleague sent the photo to several members of his age cohort, and the cracking […]

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I follow ice hockey in fits and starts. It is difficult to keep track of the sport on this side of the Atlantic; it’s not like it’s background buzz in generic sports news, over here. Also, at my last job, “hockey”, without a modifier, was assumed to be field hockey. No. Really. (India used to […]

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Pretty sure that when I heard about central London south of the River Thames, say, 30 years ago … it was largely dismissed as a crime-ridden area with nothing to see. No need to go. Terra Incognito, down there. Even the locals seemed to ignore it, although the area has been part of London for […]

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Pain. Did we mention that, the pain? Traveling the Camino de Santiago as a pilgrim is often not a pleasurable experience, in the physical sense. Heat, cold, rain, difficult terrain, average daily hikes of 26 kilometers (16 miles) — for the whole of a month, if you follow the popular route from the France-Spain border […]

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We are spending some time in Southern California, slipping in and out of the Inland Empire — that oft-maligned territory between the mountains and the sea. Often hot and smoggy, is the IE. Crisscrossed by clotted freeways burdened by folks who insist on owning a home where they can afford it and commuting to work. […]

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It took me a long time to realize the clarinet is one of the nastiest instruments in the composer’s toolbox. And for most of that time, I was playing the clarinet. Started in fourth grade, played through 12th grade. That’s nine years of honking and blarting, interrupted only by the occasional ear-piercing squeak. What was […]

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A pressure washer. That is what men really want. I know what you’re thinking. “Darn. And with Christmas behind us now.” You could have gotten your father, brother, son a pressure washer. A German company that happens to make pressure washers commissioned a marketing and research firm to get to the bottom of this — […]

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