Assistant Village Idiot

I stayed at the home of a college friend for a night after the reunion.  He had worked for the College of William and Mary for decades, reti...

But Sam turned to Bywater, and so came back up the Hill, as day was ending once more. And he went on, and there was yellow light, and fire...

One more before I go. "Children of the Heavenly Father," an old Swedish hymn that still hangs on in some Lutheran and Covenant chu...

I had lunch with two friends from St Paul's ASP (51st anniversary) on Friday, leave today for Williamsburg for my 46th reunion (the 45th...

I have been nibbling at this Nine Nations cultural background to vaccination rates, but Colin Woodard, using his similar (11) American Nati...

I have been quite cynical that anything would come of this, as have others.  It seemed to be dragging out, I thought it could just be defund...

It is always perilous to try and suss out the origins of Rock 'N Roll.  If you say some aspect was first - first electric guitar or firs...

A repost from almost two years ago.  I saw a woman at the supermarket today who had a shirt with a NH outline, inside of which was the singl...

The cast albums do not capture the poignancy necessary for this song. A second listening might be even better than the first.

I have discussed memory a bit, that we do not remember remote events anywhere near as well has we think we do and some of the reasons for th...

I have certainly written about it for years, having LWA extended family, Arts & Humanities training, and a career as a social worker. De...

 I was captivated in spite of my complete disinterest in the item or restorations in general

A popular psychology article about a recent study on anxiety and political beliefs The Unexpected Relationship Between Ideology and Anxiety ...

Warner Brothers introduced us to some varied and complex music with Looney Tunes, from Wagnerian opera to revived obscure minstrel show piec...

Repost from 2019, and includes links from much earlier.  I may comment further, but there's already enough here to keep people busy for ...

I had already been looking at some older posts about paranoia for other reasons when I saw Mike Guenther's approval of my posts on menta...

My Aunt Jennie's book about Swedish-American girls, The Golden Name Day , a 1956 Newbery runner-up, has been reissued after many years. ...

I listened to an interview with Dr. Lee Bray, lead archaeologist for Dartmoor National Park, and he turned out to be remarkably quotable. ...

Update:  I may have spoken too soon about the number of deaths receding.  My usual brilliant source knew of this one and I pass it along.  G...

I have seen the argument advanced in a few places that getting lots of people vaccinated is actually more dangerous, because it creates a mo...