… Read full post »

When the raw wound of Sandy Hook turns the edges of every subject black, poetry is one of the few places to turn for solace. 

From "Asphodel," William Carlos Williams:

It is difficult                 &… Read full post »

The terrain around West Lake is mostly rugged woods.  Early in the morning, I took a quick walk to see just how the landscape had been developed.    Like any dense suburb, residences sat back from the highway but most had gated driveways which indicated lots of disposable income t/… Read full post »

The Middle Kingdom

I had hoped to try out the Maglev train between Pu Dong International Airport and downtown Shanghai and then a bullet train to Hangzhou, but with a guide and a taxi driver with my name in English on a placard waited for me outside customs The ride… Read full post »

Hangzhou Series, Part 1

I should write about the election but I’d like to savor that a bit and let others celebrate or mourn as needed.  

Instead, I’ll post about a whirlwind trip to Hangzhou, China, a cultural center near Shanghai which had invited me in August… Read full post »

As the New Hampshire state primaries approached I had a vibrant discussion with a flatlander from Massachusetts about the recent reversal of name quality between Yankee elections and Granite State voting.  

It used to be that once the Lodges and Cabot’s went to heaven, one  cou/… Read full post »

The Navy Blue Kitchen

Sometimes an idea which scurries out of hibernation in a cubicle like a chipmunk in love with spring is best placed in a Have-A-Heart trap and quarantined to check for rabies.

So it was with my father, attempting to raise five children alone… Read full post »

There seems to be disconnects not only in the logic but also the sincerity of so many public pronouncements by Pro-Life leaders and politicians. 

If one were truly sincere in one’s Pro-life philosophy, particularly the Akin-extreme of “no exceptions,” wouldn’t o… Read full post »

Forgive me, Wendell Berry, for I have sinned.  For two decades I have held to the gospel resisting the High Priests of Technology and refused to purchase a cellphone.  Many times I have been approached by the Jezebels at Radio Shack and Best Buy, but until now have resisted their charms.&nb… Read full post »

A quiet day to take a drive around Monadnock reflect on the state of our States.   Earlier this week an Alternet article by Sara Robinson, “Conservative Southern Values Revived:  How A Brutal Strain of American Aristocrats Have Come To Rule” resonated because of her distinc/… Read full post »

Mark Twain once said, “If you  don’t like the weather in New England just wait a few minutes.”     Last week’s election results in Wisconsin are probably a good time to take that advice. 

If one is an extreme progressive, one might… Read full post »

The back and forth over e-books, nooks, kindles, hard copy, publishers, writers, Amazon, Google, indies, blockbusters, Apple, and now U.S. justice departments no matter how  literary and just it is gussied up, comes down to who gets to divvy up the cash.

Each time the discussion… Read full post »

I was fortunate to get into this weekend’s opening of The Hunger Games at a Saturday matinee in a small mill city in Central Massachusetts.  I’ve not yet read the books, but a friend of mine highly recommended them and therefore it seemed wise to see the film before the books/… Read full post »

      This week two more chapters of the “The Bearcat That Ate Keene, New Hampshire,” were composed.  The first occurred Monday morning when Keene Chief of Police Ken Meola agrred to a press conference with journalists and students at Keene State/… Read full post »

The Bearcat That Ate Keene, New Hampshire

     For a number of weeks Keene, New Hampshire, has seen itself become the uncomfortable international epi-center of a debate about whether the city should, as its Chief of Police and majority city council members have indicated, accep… Read full post »

A most strange affectation came over me this week when I dropped my car off at the garage to have a new clutch put in.    My rational mind (Hmmm, is there a “rational” mind?), anyway, whatever day-to-day apparatus that is ticking inside my skull knows precisely and/… Read full post »

I suppose it is now coming on two decades I have resisted, fended off, parried, rebutted, and avoided the purchase of a cell phone.   Despite the entreaties (nay, nagging) of my daughter and my significant other, I have resisted.  

It’s not because I’m a mart… Read full post »

      It’s the Ides of January, a little snow lays on the ground, the skiing is good, the price of heating oil has dropped or held steady, and the Pats are on to the AFC Championship game.  I suppose that means the winter which began with so/… Read full post »

      Quiet has returned to New Hampshire.  The candidates have gone to get warm in South Carolina while Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert point point out how Sir Corporate Emperor Citizen United has no clothes.  Maybe Colbert needs to actually run and pick up the/… Read full post »

     Rick Santorum’s appearance at the New England College Convention for primary candidates raised some interesting in questions.  His words as he tried to defend his stance on marriage that, “For 230 years the law has been marriage is between a man and a woman./… Read full post »

Well, with just a few more hours until the Mayans and Aztecs again move to the top of the End-of-Days sensation list— this is a good time to reflect.   Speaking of dates, I just finished reading Washington’s First War (by David Clary).   It’s not riveting prose b/… Read full post »

Christmas Eve here in Southwestern New Hampshire, it’s more like a southern Pennsylvania Christmas so far this year.  Two inches of snow yesterday morning gave hope of a white Christmas but the day’s warmth melted most of it.   A lovely sunrise today, though “pink in/… Read full post »

Earlier this week, my daughter and I got to sit in at the Huntsman/Gingrich debate on foreign affairs at St. Anselms College in Manchester, N.H.   What a refreshing experience to hear two candidates for President of the United States actually talk in coherent paragraphs about foreign policy/… Read full post »

Well I must hand it to Salon.  Do a story on bookstores and Declaration of Independents and you got me to open a blog.  Now I feel compelled to become random every week or so.  Random, a nice ring to it. 

We close in on the Ides… Read full post »

( Toadstool logo now on a pin: Read Globally; Buy Locally)

Toadstool Bookshop in Peterborough, N.H., began in an almost closet-size store along the Contoocook River over four decades ago.  It as become a magnet place for books in the Monadnock Region and has since grown an… Read full post »