Sometime after many debits, credits, and payments in trade and cash for dry goods and groceries were recorded in an 1857 ledger book, one of the early residents of Georgetown Township in Ottowa County, Michigan, made thrifty use of it in pursuit of her literary ambitions.* Beautiful ink script chronicling purchases of shoes, flour, candy, […]

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  “Spoof, the Cheer-Up Game” was published in 1916 by Milton Bradley.  According to the rules booklet, the images on the cards “represent excellent examples of early Peruvian art, as practiced by the Inca Indians.” (Posted by Doug Skinner)

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The current issue of “Fate” (June 2008) contains my literary outburst “Fort and Those Damned Books of His.”  In it, I link Charles Fort to Pyrrhonism and ‘pataphysics, celebrate his eccentric style, and thread together other words to debunk the dogma that he was a credulous crank.  The occasion is the release of Jim Steinmeyer’s excellent […]

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During a dark night — both literal and figurative — I came across this passage, which I now translate: “Those who say that life is no more than an assemblage of misfortunes must find life itself a misfortune. If it is, then death is a blessing. People do not write such things when they have […]

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           I recently indulged in an old childhood pleasure — looking through my mother’s own childhood scrapbook.  Its contents are both long-familiar and long-forgotten. But each time I reacquaint myself with the birthday cards, Brownie badges, telegrams, and programs from many Glee Club recitals, something “new” stands out. Just like memory, we see what we need to see, and are blind […]

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