There was a truly fascinating program on “Coming Out” on PBS some years ago. It followed the daughter of a wealthy Texan (where else?) as she prepared for her ball. A sort of matchmaker found escorts for the debutantes, some recruited from the military. These young officers, or they might have been from the military…

While the trial was going on, fall of 1969, I heard Abbie Hoffman speak in Pittsburgh. It was supposed to be Rennie Davis, a co-defendant (Hoffman said, “I’d never met some of them until the trial, that’s how much of a conspiracy it was.”), but he had to testify the next day so they got Abbie instead. A couple of…

I saw this when it came out, at a time when both my mother and my husband were at the end of their lives. At the scenes where a mother serves tea to her daughter from a silver teapot (so like my mother), and the old lady returns from a walk, meets with the interviewers and wordlessly brings out from her pockets oak …

What he/she said. If you don’t have access to a ziplock bag, wrap the bottle(s) firmly in one or two plastic shopping bags.

Am I a bad person for wanting to beat Spot into nuts and bolts?

I wonder whether the proposed hare deity was connected with the lunar goddess. Some cultures see not a man in the moon but a rabbit. Take a look the next time the moon is full (May 7).

There have been several historial studies of this phenomenon, including “The Steal: a cultural history of shoplifting” by Rachel Shteir, as well as a history of amateur shoplifters, “When Ladies Go a-Thieving: middle-class shoplifters in the Victorian departmental store” (Elaine Abelson, Oxford U. Press), which looks…

Good God, we should all be in that shape at 79. For that matter, let’s hope we even make it to 79. No wonder he’s not at the briefings all the time, he’s probably trying to get some sleep. Ad multos annos! [Many more years to come!]

He always struck me as classy, with a touch of country-folk to his music. Maybe it was the West Virginia heritage, maybe not. Some tunes I would love to have at a wedding reception.

Went to the public library to return a DVD of The Good Wife: closed for a month. Went to see “Portrait of a Lady on Fire” at the local art cinema: the next day the theatre closed for the next 4 weeks. The movie is very good, by the way, quiet, and almost entirely comprised of female characters. Very much a woman’s…

Years ago my husband mused, “If only there was a way to reduce world population”, and I replied, “Perhaps you’re right. Maybe we shouldn’t get our daughter vaccinated.”

I tuned in late (after finishing the season finale of “The New Pope”), so came into the middle of Janice’s life story which I can certainly relate to. However, I’ll be 70 this year and I’m definitely not an old lady!

Can I just go to bed until November?

It definitely teaches you to never lend money to your boyfriend or co-sign for someone else’s car.

To your last point, as I continued to watch old monster movies of the Thirties, Forties, Fifties, the decline in quality from the Fifties onward became obvious, until by the Sixties the genre was divided mainly into the lurid (The Blob) and the psychological (e.g. Children of the Damned).

Or beat the crap out of the monsters a la Kate Beckinsale.

I was a serious classic horror-film buff when I was younger but I was too young to see the sexual allure of Dracula or to find Bela Lugosi desirable. Sadly, a modern-day vampire doesn’t even need to be supernatural.

Sometimes a big lug is just what you want.

One of the very rare times my gaydar worked. Even though we’ve seen her friend before, this time I got the vibe. Yay me.

It is basically a large jelly doughnut, but it might have a cream filling instead. I never saw them in largely Slavic Pittsburgh, but they’ve been in upstate New York for at least a couple of decades. I do think it’s too early for hot cross buns, though.