I went to Georgetown, then Austin, this week to visit friends and conduct some research at the Briscoe Center for American History on the UT campus, a repository I have been visiting for more than 40 years. My friend lives in Circleville, a few miles north of Taylor. We met at one of our favorite lunch spots and hung out there for a pleasant 2-plus hours. She noticed I was continually glancing at my phone but was too polite to ask why. So, I confessed. I was looking at alerts on the World Cup match between England and Ghana.
I joined Kalshi, a widely used predictive market, about a month ago by depositing...
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Sir Paul McCartney was the final guest on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, whose 11-year run ended in late May to widespread lamentation, including from me. It had been a weeknight staple in our home, although we always watched it a day later on its streaming platform. Watching TV at 10:30 p.m. is no longer on our dance card. The show ended joyfully in its last episode, with the former Beatle leading a contingent of famed musicians — Jon Batiste, Elvis Costello, Louis Cato and the Great Big Joy Machine, with Colbert singing backup — in Hello, Goodbye. It is hard to imagine a more perfect...
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I had a dream about Rico Petrocelli the other night.
He came up to me in a bar, or possibly a hotel lobby, extended his hand, and said, “I’m Rico Petrocelli.” I replied, “I thought I recognized you.” He looked just like the baseball card photo I found of him online. In real life, Petrocelli turns 83 this month.
Petrocelli was a two-time All-Star shortstop for the Boston Red Sox from the mid-1960s through the mid-1970s. He was a key part of the Impossible Dream team of 1967, which improbably won the American League pennant after years as league doormats. That was a simpler time,...
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Every move you make
Every step you take
I'll be watching you.
— The Police
Every Breath You Take, the 1983 song by the Police, with Sting as lead singer and songwriter, came on the gym speakers the other day as we were warming up. Someone remarked, “I’ve always considered that a creepy stalking song.”
I hadn’t really thought about it, but she had a point. A little research indicates Sting wrote it after the painful breakup of his first marriage. He once said, “I think it’s a nasty little song, really rather evil. It’s about jealousy and surveillance and ownership.”
I...
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