THOUGHTS

In this section are thoughts on whatever comes to mind, no limit on topics, written for this web site.  When I get the impulse, I’ll write thoughts and add them to what’s already here (I don’t plan on ever deleting any thoughts).  For each thought, there will be a title, length, the month and year I wrote it, a blurb on what it’s about, and a PDF of the  thought. 

To get a sense of who I am and how I see things and what's going on with me, you could read these thoughts in order beginning with "On Foucault,"  the June, 2007 thought. The thoughts are self-contained, however, and you can read them in any order.  

If the PDFs are oversize, adjust them to accommodate your reading preference..

Beginning in 2018, I'm going go put the latest thought at the top rather than at the bottom.

                        · On a Reply to a Social Service Check-In, 2 pp., February, 2024.

                            ·  On the Large Number of Strikeouts in Baseball, 2 pp., August, 2023.

                                     
                                   · On Sinead O’Connor, 2 pp, July, 2023.

   
                                    Sinead O’Connor, born in 1966, an Irish singer/songwriter who attained world-wide, pop-star fame in the early 1990s, died in London on
                                   July 26th, 2023.  Read the thought here.

                                      · On the Hollywood Star System, 1 p, July, 2023

                 
                                    I decided to take a look at the movie “Picnic,” which I knew was well received back in the ‘50s and found it to be, indeed, a well-crafted
                                    film, William Inge, Joshua Logan, and all. But . . .   Read the full comment here.

                                 · On Irving Berlin, 3 pp., December, 2022.

                                Irving Berlin (1888-1998) was an American composer and lyricist.  On his 100th birthday tribute, famed broadcast 

                                journalist  Walter Cronkite said Berlin "helped write the story of this country, capturing the best of who we are and the 

                                dreams that shape our lives.”  Read the thought here.  

                                •  On “Museum Hours,” 2 pp.  April,2022.

                                 “Museum Hours” is a 2012 film by Jem Cohen.  I streamed it back in 2014 and was so taken with it I bought the DVD, which
                                  I’ve watched several times since and it has always been a rewarding experience.  This time, I particularly picked up on how, 
                                 or so I believe, the film was created.  Read the thought here.

                                •  On the Death of Virginia Maier, 1p., March, 2022.

                                   Vivian Maier (1926–2009) was an American street photographer.  She worked for forty years as a nanny while pursuing
                                   her photography, which she didn’t share.  Her work was discovered and highly lauded after her death.  Read the thought here.

                               •  On the Bingo Incident, 2 pp., January, 2022.

                                  I don’t know if bingo is still played these years.  What I’m recounting here happened back in the 1940s

                            •  On “The Comfort of Strangers,” 2 pp., December, 2021.

                               They really had it going with the 1990 film, “The Comfort of Strangers," but didn’t complete the job.  Read the film
                               review here.

                            •   On “To Tell the Truth,” 3 pp., December, 2021.

                            •  On Therapy, 7 pp., November, 2021.

                              This is about talk therapy.  You go once week, or maybe more often, and tell someone about your problems. 
                              Read the thought here.

                           •  On Why I Didn’t Watch the World Series This Year, 3pp., November, 2021.

                           After a long lifetime of watching the World Series on television, this year (2021) it never crossed my mind.  I asked myself why.
                           I came up with an answer.   Here it is.

                             •  On Three Empowering Personal Qualities, 2 pp., October, 2021.

                            I’ve concluded that there are three personal qualities—or attributes, or characteristics—that particularly contribute to living
                            well.  Read about the three here.

                             •   On Doctors, 5pp, October, 2021,

                            • On Roy Rogers Riding Tonight, 6 pp, October, 2021.

                         I don’t know how much people these days know about Roy Rogers, but he was big when I was growing up in the ‘40s and ‘50s,    

                         a singing cowboy in movies, and then he had a half-hour TV show.  This thought is about him . . . and me.  Read it here.

                          • On Ross Macdonald, 2 pp., September, 2021.
 
                           I’d read here, there, and everywhere about what a world class writer Ross Macdonald (1915-1983) was.  I had never read anything
                           by Macdonald and picked The Chill, published in 1964, which is ranked high on the “Macdonald’s best” lists. 
                           Read the thought here.

                              •  On the Leopold-Loeb Case, 2 pp., July, 2021.

                              These days in retirement, I go wherever my impulses take me.  I don’t try to figure anything out, I just do what I’m told.  This
                              past weekend, it was a book on a murder case from the 1920s, the Leopold-Loeb case, that I had heard about all of my life.  Two
                              rich college students from Chicago murdered a young boy for the excitement of it—or something like that, that’s as much as I
                             knew.   Read the thought here.

                            • On What The New York Times Didn’t Consider Fit to Print, 2pp., June, 2021. 

                             I submit comments now and again to articles in The New York Times.   Some are accepted, some not.  Here’s a comment that was
                             met with silence—they don’t even let me know why a comment is unacceptable.  Read the thought here.

                            • On the West Memphis Three, 3 pp., June, 2021.                                       

                             After a long lifetime of paying little attention to true crime, suddenly I’m caught up with it.  The latest, the West Memphis
                             Three case.  Read the thought here.

                           • On the Flashy Uniform Challenge, 1 p., May, 2021.

                           Here’s a picture of two guys who I think set the upper limit for flashy uniforms.  My challenge to you is to come up with a flashier

                           uniform than these two did.  Bet you can’t.  See the picture here.

                           •  On Canadian Serial Killers, 4 pp., April, 2021.

                            It’s been Canadian serial killer week for me.  All of the cases I’ll refer to here received enormous media attention in Canada,
                            one of them in the early 1990s and the other three around 2010.   I hadn’t known of any of them until the last few days.  Read the
                            thought here.

                           • On What’s Wrong with Baseball, 5 pp., April, 2021.

                           I’m a big fan of New York Post sports columnist Phil Mushnick.  This thought is an email I sent to him in response to his
                           column of April 17th, 2021 entitled “Exploiting Shift is Just Part of Playing True Winning Baseball.”   Read the email here.

                          • On Tim O’Brien (and Me), 4 pp., March, 2021.

                          Tim O’Brien (1946-  ) is an American novelist.  I’ve spent the past couple of days with O’Brien in a way, or I suppose better,
                          reacting to him. First, I watched the 2021 documentary on him, “The War and Peace of Tim O’Brien,” which inspired me to
                          read his 2019 book, Dad’s Maybe Book.  Read the complete thought here.

                          • On Staying Clear of Straight Men, and Whether Gerard Depardieu Could Be Any Fatter, 2 pp., March, 2021.

                         “Let the Sunshine In,” released in 2017, is a superbly made film.  Dialogue, cinematography, editing, Juliette Binoche and
                         every other actor, first rate.  Intelligent, classy, worth my time.  That acknowledged, I found it one-note and didactic.  See the
                         complete review here.

                        • On Not Taking What Isn’t Freely Given, 3 pp., February, 2021.

                         The past couple of months, I have been looking for ways to come at a fundamental issue: how should I be with other people? 
                         Read the thought here.

                       • On Mae Boren Axton, 3 pp., February, 2021.

                        I’ve decided that Mae Boren Axton had nothing to do with writing Elvis’ first big national hit, “Heartbreak Hotel.”  Read the
                        thought here.

                        • On Honing Our Instrument, 2pp., February, 2021.

                        A young man wrote me asking about the late William Pierce’s daily habits—I wrote a book on Pierce two decades ago--and I
                        mentioned that Pierce munched on small chewy candies from a big bowl throughout his very long workday, I presume for the sugar
                        high it gave him.  The young man immediately got back to me asking, I believe seriously, whether I thought the
                        candy-munching was a good practice, and I answered him.  As I looked over the few sentences I had jotted down to send this     

                       young   man, it struck me they  summarize what I think each if us needs to get in place in order to up our chances of living well,
                       so decided to share what I wrote with you here.  See the reply  here.

                        • On the Sensei and William Saroyan, 2 pp., November, 2020.

                         Trump’s lost and I’m sitting here on this leather couch letting my mind go where it will and aikido classes I took years ago pops
                         into my head.  Read the thought here,

                       •  On How to Deal with People Like Me, 5 pp., November, 2020.         

                       My grade school and high school friend Ed, as I’ll call him, from Saint Paul, Minnesota, now a retired dentist, has an e-mailing list
                       of people, which includes me, he regularly send things to that strike him as worth sharing.  Read the thought here.

                      •  On Making Sense of the Here and Now, 3 pp., November, 2020.

                       The 2020 World Series has just ended.  The manager of the losing team, the Tampa Bay Rays, took his star pitcher Blake Snell out
                       of the deciding game--prematurely, so it was asserted--in the fifth inning.  Read the thought here.

                      • On Being a Life Example to Others, 2pp., October, 2020.

                      At this writing, Amy Coney Barrett has completed two days of testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee as part of her

                      confirmation as a justice on the Supreme Court.  Watching the televised proceedings, I was taken by Amy’s manner.  Read the
                      thought here.

                     • On Robert Firestone, 2 p., October, 2020.

                      I’m bigger on self-help literature than most people.  There’s the idea prevalent that reading science fiction or true crime is cool, but
                      giving time and effort to reading about what’s holding you back from living as well as possible is decidedly uncool.  That’s not how
                      I see it.   For example, consider the writings of psychologist Robert Firestone.  Read the thought here.

                    •  On What Some Songs Add Up To, 6 pp. September, 2020.

                     Last night, I watched a YouTube of singer Bobby Hatfield, who was half of a duo called The Righteous Brothers, performing
                     the song “Unchained Melody” on the Andy Williams television show on NBC back in 1965.  Read the thought here.

                     •  On Advice to a Young Teacher, 3 pp., September, 2020.

                     A former student of mine when I taught teacher education courses in the university is now in her late twenties and a high school
                     English teacher in the midwestern part of the United States.  She stays in touch with me by email.  This thought is a portion of my
                     most recent reply to her.   Read it here.

                   •  On Joanna Hogg, 2 pp.,  August, 2020.

                     Joanna Hogg is a British film director and screenwriter, and from the three films I’ve seen of hers—she’s made a total of four—she
                     is truly brilliant.   Read the complete review here.

                    •  On a Rejection Hook, 6 pp., July, 2020.                                 

                      As long as I can remember, I have been attempting to make sense of, and personally deal with, what I have come to call a
                      “rejection hook” that keeps me from living as well as I would like to.  Read the thought here.

                   • On Krzysztof Kieślowski, 3 pp., June, 2020.

                   •  On the Casey Anthony Murder Case, 3 pp., May, 2020.

                   I had a good experience with a couple of true-crime books by attorneys for the prosecution and defense in the Casey Anthony murder
                   trial in 2011.  Read the complete thought here.

                   •  On Saying Goodbye to Michael Jordan, 5 pp., May, 2020.

                  I’m sitting on my leather couch watching a sports documentary called “Jordan Rides the Bus,” and about twelve minutes into it,
                  it washes over me, “What the hell am I watching this silliness for?”   Read the complete thought here.

                  • On My Box Seat, 3 pp., May, 2020.

                    I find my dreams to be lessons on what is currently going on with me.  I’ll analyze last night’s dream and the meaning I gave it as
                    a way of suggesting that you do the same kind of thing with your dreams.   Read the analysis here.

 
                • On Towards and Avoids, 3 pp, April, 2020.

                  Recently, I’ve been dividing everything in my life into two categories.  Something or someone is either a Toward or an Avoid. 
                  Read the thought here.

                 • On COVID-19 and Curtis LeMay, 4 pp., March, 2020.

               As I write this, the world is under attack from a deadly strain of coronavirus called COVID-19.  People have been         

               warned to stay in their houses or apartments hunkered down in the face of this menacing enemy.  Tonight, hunkered down,
               I read  a biography  of a World War II air force general by the name of Curtis LeMay.  It prompted me to compare LeMay
               and COVID-19 as  killing machines.  Read the complete thought here.

        
               • On Rhiannon, 7 pp., March, 2020.

               An excerpt from an email to my fifteen-year-old daughter about the Welsh mythological figure Rhiannon and a popular song that
               was written about her.  Read the excerpt here.

            • On What It's Like to Be on Death Row, 1 p., March, 2020.

              Voice-over narration from the 1967 film “On Cold Blood,” about two men, Perry Smith and Dick Hickok, sentenced to     

              death for the murder of four members of a Kansas farm family,   Read the narration here.

                •  On Getting the Word About Mookie, 3 pp., March, 2020.

              At this writing, Mookie Betts, a star outfielder for the Boston Red Sox, has been traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers.
              An old high school friend sent a mass email to “undisclosed recipients,” which includes me, with a link to an article
              about the trade he obviously liked.  Read the complete thought here.

                 • On Movie Messages, 6 pp., February, 2020.

                 Two movies that got big media hype this past year were screenwriter and director Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a
                 Time . . . in Hollywood” and a South Korean film, “Parasite.”   I was disappointed with both.  Read my review here.

               •  On “The White Crow,” 2 pp., January, 2020.                                                                                 

               As of last night, all I knew about the film “The White Crow” was that it was about 23-year-old Russian ballet dancer Rudolf
               Nureyev’s 1961 defection to the West in a Paris airport; I hadn’t read any reviews or anything.  Read my review here.

              • On Tennessee Williams, 1 p., January, 2020.

                Lines from a Williams play and poem.  Read them here.

             • On Being Vigilant for Life’s Lessons, 4 pp., January, 2020.

              • On “What About Bob,” 3 pp., December, 2019.

            I’ve learned to go with my impulses.  Even if they don’t make sense to me when they come up, invariably later on they do.   This was
            the case with the old movie “What About Bob?”  Read the thought here.

            • On Maren Ade, 2 pp., December, 2019.

               • On Ricard Jewell, 2 pp., December, 2019.

               Richard Jewell was a security guard suspected, falsely it turned out, of setting off a bomb at the site of the 1996 Olympic Games in
              Atlanta.  At this writing, a new book has just come out about him.  Read my comments on the book here.

              • On John Simon, 2 pp., November 2019.

              I read John Simon’s obituary in The New York Times today.  Read the thought here.

              • On John Klute, 4 pp., November, 2019.

            “Klute” is a 1971 film directed by Alan J. Pakula starring Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland.  Set in contemporary New York City, it
            tells the story of a call girl Bree Daniels (Fonda), who assists a policeman working freelance, John Klute (Sutherland), with a missing person  

            case.  Over the years, the Bree Daniels character has been analyzed in great depth and the John Klute character very little if at all.   

            Read the thought here.

              • On All We Can Do, 2 pp., November, 2019.

             “Vanya on 42nd Street” is a 1994 film directed by French director Louis Malle.  The film is a rehearsal-type performance of the classic           
             Russian play “Uncle Vonya” before a small invited audience in an abandoned theater in New York City.  The last lines of the play are spoken
             to Uncle Vanya by his niece Sonya.   Read the complete thought here.

             • On Babe Ruth’s Legs, 8 pp., November, 2019.

            
              Here are three pictures of the Yankee baseball star Babe Ruth.  Would you say that he had spindly legs?  Long, thin, frail? 
              Make a call: spindly, not spindly.   Read the complete thought here.

             • On How Life Ends Up, 2 pp., October, 2019.

            I spent the past week updating an article I wrote ten years ago with the intention of submitting it to an online magazine.   When I looked
            it over when I was done, I decided it was old news and dropped the idea.  The one thing that wasn’t old news in what I had put together was
            an introductory note about why I was doing the update.  Read the complete thought here.

            •  On Jimmy Rayl, 3 pp., September, 2019.

            I recently thought about an incident involving a former Indiana basketball player by the name of Jimmy Rayl, both as he was then and
            as he is now (or was,he just died)   Read the thought here. 

            • On Sandy Duncan’s Ears, 3 pp., September, 2019.

             Sandy Duncan is old now, 73, but at one time she was really big in the entertainment field.   Read the thought here. 

            • On Dying, 5 pp., August, 2019.

             I read a book that helped me clarify the difference between death and dying.   Read the thought here.

           
             • On Being Really Old, 4 pp., August, 2019.

             I read a book and saw a film on old age I’d like you to know about.  Read the thought here.

            • On “Detour,” Et al., 8 pp., July, 2019.

            Three days ago, I streamed the 1945 film “Detour.”  The most thought-provoking film I’ve seen in my memory.  Read the full thought here.

         
          • On the Death of James Whale Revisited, 10 pp., June, 2019.

         Out of nowhere it seemed, this week I felt a strong desire to see the 1998 film “Gods and Monsters,” which I had seen
         before, eleven years ago.  Read the complete thought here.

         •  On Arthur Godfrey and Haleloke, 6 pp., May, 2019.

         When I was twelve or so, I watched Arthur Godfrey and Haleloke on television.  Read the complete thought here.

       •  On Growing Up Well, 3 pp., April, 2019.

         Dear Dee— A big part of growing up is finding out what you are good at and like to do.     Read the email portion here.

     •  On Getting Our Needs Met, 6 pp., April, 2019.

    This week, I’ve been perusing a book about the French-born intellectual René Girard (1923-2015).   Reading the book has
    prompted me to recall a book I read a year ago, What Day is Today?  The Story of My Life in the Minor Leagues, and to reflect
    on how we go about satisfying our needs.  Read the thought here.

     •  On Mindfulness. 2pp., March, 2019.

      I don’t know if it’s the biggest choice we make in our lives, but a crucially important choice is to be happy.  Read the complete thought here.

      • On a Role Model for Dee, 5 pp., March, 2019.

       My daughter Dee is fourteen now, a freshman in high school.   Like every parent, I think about who in Dee’s world she can look up
       to and emulate.  It was reassuring this past week to find just such a person:  the singer Miley Cyrus.   Read the thought here.

      
        • On Kurt Vonnegut, 4pp,,  March, 2019.

        About a week ago, I looked through the biography and autobiography section of my local library’s e-book collection, and a book of letters
        by the writer Kurt Vonnegut caught my eye.  Read the complete thought here,

       • On Jean Arthur, 4pp., February, 2019.

       This week, I read a biography of the old-time movie actress (she did some stage work after her movie career ended) Jean Arthur (1900-1990)
        that has stuck with me.   Read the thought here.

     • On “Lyle Mitchell,” 6pp., February, 2019

     I was taken with “Escape at Dannemora,” a seven-part series on SHOWTIME which aired in November and December of 2018 and I binge
     watched in January, 2019.  “Escape at Dannemora” is based on the breakout from a prison in up-state New York by two life-sentence murderers.    

    They were abetted in their escape, as well as sexually serviced, by a prison employee, Joyce “Tilly” Mitchell.  The focus here is on the
     relationship between Tilly and her husband Lyle.   Read the thought here.

    • On Getting Better at Golf (and Other Things Too), 4 pp., January, 2019.

      • On the Interminable Ending of Basketball Games, 4 pp., December, 2018.

       I’m a regular reader of Phil Mushnick’s sports columns in The New York Post online.  I find him a breath of fresh air amid all the cheerleading and inanity
        that passes for sports commentary in our time.  Read the thought here.

       • On “First Reformed,” 5 pp., December, 2018.

         I’ve written favorably about screenwriter and director Paul Schrader on this site (see the thought “On Paul Schrader,” October, 2014).  
         I’ve changed my mind.   Read the complete thought here.

         I suppose to the world, the 2014 French-and-English language film “Just a Sigh” is three-and-a-half, perhaps four, stars out of five. 
         But to me personally, its five stars.   I can’t get enough of it.  Read the review here.

• On Dealing with Reviews, 3 pp., September, 2018.

After viewing a film, I often check the internet to see what professional critics have to say about it, as well as
look over viewers’ comments.   Read the complete thought here.

           • On Jack Jarpe, 4 pp., August, 2018.

           It’s a little after  5:00 a.m., and the image of Jack Jarpe from  

           my high school teaching years just popped in my   

           consciousness, however that happens--this was fifty years    

           ago, a half century, my gosh.  Read the complete

           thought here.

            • On “It’s Only Make Believe,” 7 pp., July, 2018.

            The past year, every couple of months it seems, I give over a couple      

  days to an “It’s Only Make Believe” pre-occupation.  Read the  complete thought here.

            • On Dee’s AirPods, 3 pp., July, 2018.

             My 13-year-old daughter Dee lives with her mother in another state.   Dee emailed me asking me to get her some AirPods, wireless earplugs
             that serve as earphones.   This is my emailed reply to her.  Read the reply here.

•On Guilt, 5 pp., June, 2018.

A week or so ago, I read a novel by William Maxwell (1908-2000), So Long, See You Tomorrow.  It is a very good book; I’d put it in the
bottom half of the top rank.   That’s all I’ll say about the worth of the book.  This isn’t a book review.  Rather, it is about what an episode
in the book brought up for me about my own life.   Read the complete thought here.

          • On Anna May Wong, 4 pp., May, 2018.

          For the past week, I’ve been caught up with Anna May Wong.   Who’s Anna May Wong?   A week ago, I didn’t know either.   Read the  

          complete thought here.

         • On William Stoner, 6 pp., April, 2018.

         William Stoner is the protagonist of the eponymous novel Stoner, published in 1965, the author John Williams (NYRB Classics, 2010).   The 

         book has gotten a lot of attention in the last few years--decades after its publication,and long after the death of its author. 
         Read my commentary here,

         • On Memory, 2 pp., April, 2018.

          Song from the musical “Cats.”  The lyrics here.        

          • On the Baritone Horn, 3pp., March, 2018.

        •  On Dr. Toni Grant, 6pp., March, 2018.

       A couple of weeks ago, I guess it was, the memory of a radio show I listened to just about daily many years ago popped into my mind,
       seemingly out of the blue.   Read the thought here.

        • On Dad’s Stories, 15 pp., January, 2018.

        I read a book on the magician and escape artist Harry Houdini (1874-1926). The Houdini book reminded me of an anecdote involving him
        my dad recounted to me frequently as a kid.  Read the complete thought here.

• On Foucault.  19 pp.  June, 2007.

Michel Foucault (1926-1984) was a philosopher who taught at the College de France and other universities, including in the United States. He authored critical studies of social institutions, including psychiatry, medicine, and the prison system.  He also wrote about the history of sexuality and the relationship between power, knowledge, and human discourse. I first read a biography of Foucault by James Miller, The Passion of Michel Foucault, in, I believe, 1995, and have revisited it regularly since, once or twice year, reading a chapter or two or three and browsing sections here and there before setting it back on my library shelf.  This last time I pulled the book off the shelf—in June of 2007--I noted the phrases and sentences, sometimes a paragraph, I had underlined, I suppose, ten or twelve years ago.  For this thought, I reproduce the underlines and offer my comments.  This thought provides a sense of the impact this book has had on me, including my writing, this past decade, and gets across something of what I am like in 2007.  Also, I hope this thought will prompt readers to reflect on their own lives, as well as look into Foucault and the other philosophers mentioned in these pages.    Read the full thought here.

• On Mishima.  8 pp.  July, 2007.

Yukio Mishima (1925-1970) was a Japanese author and playwright, who gained international recognition and acclaim, including being on a short list for the Nobel Prize in Literature.  He is most remembered, however, for his ritual suicide at 45 by seppuku (disemboweling oneself with a knife and then being beheaded by a colleague).  I’ve read a good bit of Mishima’s fiction, but I have been most drawn to his outlook as an artist and as a man and to his personal story.  Every couple of years for the last fifteen, I’ve checked out from the library two biographies on him and his philosophical essay and memoir Sun & Steel.  In this thought I comment on excerpts from Sun & Steel.  I hope I explain Mishima some here and encourage readers to look into his writings and personal example, but most of all I use Mishima’s writings to explain myself.   Read the full thought here.

• On the New McCarthyism.  18 pp.  July, 2007.

The topic here is the current attacks on racially conscious and active white people by those who would marginalize, silence, and punish them for their beliefs, expressions, and actions.  I use a memoir on the McCarthy era, as it was called, in the 1940s and ‘50s, written by Walter Bernstein, Inside Out: A Memoir of the Black List, and an encounter I had in late 2006 with the Southern Poverty Law Center to frame an analysis of this phenomenon, drawing parallels between what went on in the McCarthy years, and at other points in history, and what’s going on now.  I offer some suggestions on how racially committed white people can deal with attacks against them.  Read the full thought here.

• On A Very Big Regret.  22pp.  July, 2007.

I’d like this thought to speak for itself.  The title says as much as you need to know about it before you read it.  Read the full thought here.

• On Personal Health.  16 pp.  August, 2007.

I’ve never gone after good health for all I was worth at any time in my life, and that has held me back in significant ways.  I’m making that commitment in this thought, and I’ll describe how I plan to carry out this commitment over the next few months.  I hope this thought gives guidance and inspiration both to me and to the reader of these words.   Read the full thought here.

• On Three Films That Touched Me.  3 pp.  August, 2007.

This past year, I saw three old Japanese films by the same director, Yasujiro Ozu, that touched me more than any films in my memory.  All three feature the actress Setsuko Hara.  This is my report on those three films.  Read the full thought here.

•On Living the Martial Way.  8 pp. August, 2007.

In the same way I did with the Foucault and Mishima thoughts, I record underlines I made in a book years ago and comment on them, a book I have gone back to a number of times since that first reading.  The book is Living the Martial Way by Forrest Morgan.   My focus is on the application of what Morgan calls the warrior mind-set to daily life.  Read the full thought here.

       •On John Cheever   3 pp. November, 2007

       •On Man in the Holocene  2pp.  November, 2007 

     •On The Punisher, 1 p, April, 2008.

      Comic book superheroes tend to abide by the law and stay away from killing.  One of Marvel     

      comics' characters, however, created in the 1970s, The Punisher, had a very different 
      outlook.  Read the full thought here.

     •  On Sheep to Slaughter, 3 pp., April, 2015.

      On July 22, 2011, 32-year-old Norwegian Anders Breivik set off a bomb outside the offices of the Prime Minister and the  Ministry of Justice in central Oslo killing
      eight people.  He then traveled to the nearby island of Utoya and shot dead 69  participants of a Workers’ Youth League summer camp.  In August of 2012, he was
      convicted of mass murder, causing a fatal explosion, and terrorism.  This writing isn’t about Breivik and his motivations, personal or political—was he a madman
      or a revolutionary?—or the larger ideological and ethnic issues that provided the context for his actions.  Rather, it is about my response to how ten teenagers died on
      Utoya Island that July day.   Read the complete thought here.

      • On John Berryman, 1p., May, 2015.

      From the poem “Despair” by John Berryman (1914-1972).   Read the poem excerpt here.

      •  On Poe Ballantine, 6pp., May, 2015.

     Two days ago, I was browsing Amazon looking for a film to watch.  I came upon a new (2015) documentary with an over-the-top title that grabbed my attention,
     “Love and Terror on the Howling Plains of Nowhere.”  Read the full thought here.

     • On Serving Somebody, 1p., June, 2015.

     From the Bob Dylan song “Gotta Serve Somebody.”  See the lyrics here.

    • On Embarrassment (And Other Unpleasantness), 12pp., June, 2015.

    In these web site thoughts, I’ve identified topics for study—perhaps even academic, scholarly, investigation.  This thought invites explorations 

    into the phenomenon of embarrassment.   Read the full thought here. 

     • On Emily Dickinson, 1p., June, 2015.

     A poem by Emily Dickinson I sent to my ten-year-old daughter.  Read the poem here.

      • On Mortality, 13pp., July, 2015.

      Last month, I turned 75.  That got my attention.  That is geriatric old, no getting around it.  For obvious reasons, mortality has been on
      my mind this past month.   Consider this thought to be notes on what has come out of it.   Read the complete thought here.

      • On “Cache” and Quality, 4 pp., August, 2015.

      A project I’ve set out for myself is to use the idea of quality—high quality—as a guide to what I do in all aspects of my life from here
      forward.  Read the complete thought here.

      • On the Boxer, 1 p.,  August, 2015.

      With my serious hearing impairment I can’t hear music at all.  I don’t know a trumpet from a saxophone and can’t tell you what anybody’s
      voice sounds like, and I can’t discern melody at all.   But there’s one place I can hear perfectly: in my dreams.   Last night, I heard the old
      song “The Boxer” sung by Simon and Garfunkel with perfect clarity, including the last verse.   Read the complete thought here.

        • On So Yong Kim, 4 pp.,  September, 2015.

       This past couple of weeks, I viewed three films by the Korean American independent filmmaker So Yong Kim.  I found them
       remarkable, absolutely top of the line, and more, I believe these three films have had a significant and lasting positive impact on me
       personally.  Read the full thought here.

       • On America, 1p.,  September, 2015.

       Let mortal tongues awake.  Read the lyrics here.

        • On Annie’s Song, 1p., October, 2015.

        By John Denver.  The lyrics and a link to the song here.

         • On “River of No Return,” 5pp., October, 2015.

        This past week, I read a biography of the bad-boy-but-talented actor Robert Mitchum (1917-1997).   The book discussed a movie Mitchum
        made in 1954 with Marilyn Monroe called “River of No Return.”   It hit me that I had seen that movie with my parents in
        Milwaukee, Wisconsin when it first came out.  Read the complete thought here.

         • On Yogi Bhajan, 12 pp., November, 2015.

        In the late 1970s, I lived in Los Angeles for a year.  Just about every day during that time, I would drive to an ashram—a center of
        Eastern thought and practice--to take an hour-long yoga class.  I learned eventually that I was getting the kundalini form of yoga, and
        that the ashram was the creation of a Sikh guru from India who went by the name of Yogi Bhajan (1929-2004). 
        Read the complete thought here.

        • On Living Blind, 11 pp., January, 2016.

       This thought is a movie recommendation and a report on the personal meaning I gave the film, and it is a commitment to do some
       work on myself.  Read the complete thought here.

        • On Waiting  10 pp., February, 2016.

        I took note of a story I read in the newspaper a couple of weeks ago about a dog in Japan named Hachiko, an Akita breed, born in 1923. 
        It got me thinking about waiting, both generally and in my own life.  Read the thought here.

       • On Two Old People,  4pp.,  March, 2016.

       Dialogue from the 2015 film “Youth.”   A film director in his late seventies and his lead actress, who is around his age.  
       Read the dialogue here.

     • On the Personal Worth of Fiction, 10 pp., March, 2016.

     After a long lifetime of almost exclusively reading non-fiction, in the last six months or so I’ve noted that my life goes better if I
     regularly read fiction.  Read the complete thought here. 

      • On How a Kids’ Golf Tournament Could Have Better, 6 pp.,  May,  2016.

      Recently, my eleven-year-old daughter played in a kids’ golf tournament.  In general, the tournament was nicely organized.  
      Still, I was left with the impression that it could have been set up to be even better than it was.  Read the complete thought here.

      • On Jenny Diski, 6 pp., May, 2016.

      An April 29th, 2016 obituary in The New York Times reported the death from cancer at 68 of a British writer with the odd name of
      Jenny Diski that I found intriguing.  Read the complete thought here.

      • On Modeling the Best, 9 pp., June, 2016.

      I have an eleven-year-old daughter.  A recent message from me to her mother contained some things about learning and personal
      growth, or development, that I think have general applicability.  Read the email excerpt here.

      • On “The Assassination of Richard Nixon,” 3 pp., August, 2016.

      This is a recommendation for film buffs that liked “Taxi Driver.”   Not to disparage “Taxi Driver”--indeed, it is a fine film, a classic—but
      the real deal in the loner-menace genre is an obscure 2004 Sean Penn film, “The Assassination of Richard Nixon.”   Read the complete thought  

      here.

      • On Hank Williams, 1 p., August, 2016.

      Song lyrics by Hank Williams.   Read the lyrics here.

       • On The Hollywood Argyles and Kinji Shibuya, 9pp., September, 2016.

       The Hollywood Argyles was a band and Kinji Shibuya was a professional wrestler back in the 1950s and early ‘60s.  Read the complete
       thought here. 

      • On the Decline of NFL Television Ratings, 4 pp., October,  2016.

      An email from me to a newspaper sports columnist.  Read the email here.    

      • On Leonard Cohen, 1p., November, 2016.

      Singer, songwriter, poet, novelist Leonard Cohen died on November 7th, 2016.   The lyrics to his song, “The Bird on the Wire.” 
      Read the lyrics here.

      • On Football Players Making a Better World, 4 pp., December, 2106.

      On December 17th, 2016, The New York Times reported that University of Minnesota football players rescinded their threatened boycott and
      will play in the Holiday Bowl game in San Diego on December 27th.  They had said they would not play in the game if the university didn’t
      lift the suspensions of 10 players involved in what an internal university investigation concluded was sexual assault and sexual misconduct with
      a woman, who, according to some accounts, was 22-years-old and a student. It is clear that the woman had had a lot to drink and behaved
     very foolishly, but the players were barbaric.  But what I find most interesting in this case at the time of this writing, mid-December, are
     three things that didn’t happen.   Read my thoughts on the case here.

      •On Epitetus, 38 pp., January, 2017.

     Epictetus (50-135 AD) is the best-known philosopher associated with the orientation to living known as stoicism.  In this thought,
     I offer my commentaries on Epictetus quotes.   Read the quotes and responses here.

      • On Rider’s Rules for Cowboys and Cowgirls, 2 pp, February, 2017.

      As a kid back in the 1940s and ‘50s I was a big fan of movie and TV cowboy Roy Rogers.  Roy had what he called “rider’s rules,” ten
      standards for how to conduct your life he’d send on a card if you wrote him.   Read the complete thought here.

       • On Snow Days, 2 pp., February, 2017.

      To her delight, my twelve-year-old daughter had a snow day today; no school, bad weather, too much snow.  Ah yes, snow days. 
      I remember back when I was first started my career in teaching in a high school.  Read the complete thought here.

       • On An Academy Award Injustice, 6pp., February, 2017.

       “John Wick” is a 2014 film starring Keanu Reeves directed by Chad Stahelski from a screenplay by Derek Kolstad.  Fine film.  I was
       particularly taken by Kolstad’s brilliant screenplay.  Read the complete thought here.

       • On Children’s Writing, 4pp., February, 2017. 

      My 12-year-old daughter Dee’s mother and I have been concerned that the middle school Dee goes to—she’s in the seventh grade—isn’t
      having her do enough writing.  Read the complete thought here.

       • On "Manchester by the Sea," 2pp., March, 2017.

       Dialogue from the 2016 film, “Manchester by the Sea.”   Read the dialogue here.

       • On Chuck Berry, 1p.,  March, 2017.

       Rock and roll legend Chuck Berry died on March 18th, 2017.   Read the lyrics of his 1959 song “Memphis, Tennessee" here.

      • On Derek Cianfrance, 2pp., March, 2017.

      Derek Cianfrance is an American film director I recommend you check out.   Read my commentary on one of his films here.

      • On Bert Cardullo, 6 pp., April, 2017.

     Looking for a published interview with the late film director Eric Rohmer by scholar and critic Bert Cardullo, instead of the interview
     I found a retraction notice.  Read the complete thought here.

     • On Shirley Jackson, 2 pp., June, 2017.

     Diary entries by the American writer Shirley Jackson (1916-1965).  Read the entries here.

       · On Cool Names, 4 pp., September, 2017.

        I’ve got a thing about people’s names.  Read the complete thought here.

       • On Al Franken, et al., 4 pp., December, 2017.

      Senator Al Franken from Minnesota has just announced that he intends to resign for the Senate because of his alleged sexual improprieties.
      He is the latest of a string of prominent men, beginning with movie mogul Harvey Weinstein, brought down by their purported sexual
      misconduct.  I wrote an email message to a friend that gets across my take on what has been front page news for weeks.  Read the email here.

      • On Jerry Kindall, 2 pp., December, 2017.

      Jerry Kindall died today, Christmas day, 2107.  He was 82 years old.   Kindall was a legendary college baseball coach of the University of
      Arizona, and before that a second baseman for the Chicago Cubs and other major league baseball teams.  He was a native of my home town,
      Saint Paul, Minnesota.  I have a personal memory of him.  Read the complete thought here.

      Note: beginning in 2018, I will enter the latest thought at the top rather than the bottom of the page.

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