Home Alone

‘Tis the season for not only reindeer, grinches and magical snowmen but also fearless children, negligent parents and dumb thieves. “Home Alone” may not be the first Christmas movie that comes to mind, but it turns out there’s a long and storied tradition of children left alone around the holidays matching wits against would-be robbers. Read More

Clip of the Week: December 1, 2021

Andrew Shampney of Yonkers, N. Y., has appealed to the police to make his wife stop kissing and hugging him so much. – The Day Book, July 9, 1912 Don’t worry, Andrew, something tells me your soon-to-be ex-wife won’t kiss or hug you ever again. But when the judge grants her alimony request, her divorce Read More

Clip of the Week: November 17, 2021

James Morgan (70) was charged (before Alderman R. Corry and Mr J. H. Jotham, C.C.) at the Cardiff Police Court to-day with being drunk on the Hayes on Wednesday evening. Prisoner, who is a grizzled old veteran, expressed his remorse at his little misadventure and instinctively produced an ancient looking parchment bearing a record of Read More

The Importance of Being Clothed

While it’s important to be earnest, we all know what happened when the emperor ordered new clothes. Priorities, people. On a scale of embarrassment, getting caught with your pants down is right up there with failing gym class, wearing a hat in Parliament and getting your hair stuck in flypaper. What’s even worse, however, is Read More

Planes, Feigns and Automobiles

It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s. . . me in the pilot seat! Well, close enough. A few weeks ago, I checked off a bucket list item and took a flying lesson. I wasn’t flying quite like Superman, but I sure felt like a superhero when I successfully turned the ignition key in the Read More

Elephants Gone Wild, Part 2

What makes an elephant turn to a life of crime? Nature? Nurture? Second Glance History’s guide to pickpocketing? We may never be sure, but what we do know is there are enough incidents of mammoth misconduct for a full season of “CSI: Ele-felony.” Last time, elephant bad boys Peanut and Basil impersonated a sea serpent Read More

Clip of the Week: June 16, 2021

Read to the end for a plot twist I guarantee you won’t see coming: A man who had committed bigamy was to-day acquitted at the Paris Assizes. He had married a woman twenty years older than himself, but she turned out to have a very bad temper, and refused to live with him. Then he Read More

Tattoos to Undo

Stay tuned until the end for some shameless self-promotion! I’m way too old for teenage rebellion, but that didn’t stop me from walking into a tattoo studio recently. As I nervously contemplated which design I would spend the rest of my life staring at, I had no shortage of options. Did I want an inspirational Read More

Snarky in Seattle

Some people say, “Take a trip and forget your unhappy love affair.” What! Forget it now, only to remember it all the more later on? Never! . . . Better let your heart bleed for several days in succession and then heal itself than to staunch it by a few weeks’ trip somewhere only to Read More

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