Original anecdotes, commentary, rumination, and occasional pontification.
AUGUST 5, 2024 – As with many a plan that goes awry, its derailment or alternative can often produce a serendipitous result. Having booked a stateroom aboard the R.M.S. Titanic, for example, a couple misses the ship’s departure, and lo and behold, they get to avoid swimming with the icebergs. Or in my largely unremarkable …
AUGUST 4, 2024 -When the opportunity presents itself, I love boarding and inspecting old refurbished wooden yachts. My most recent encounter with such a classic vessel occurred last summer at the Annual Wooden Boat Show at Mystic Seaport in Mystic, Connecticut. What stopped our slow walk along the wharf was a 30-something-foot-long beautifully restored sloop. …
AUGUST 2, 2024 – (Cont.) When the auto-mechanic . . . er, dental hygienist . . . said that my Sonicare toothbrush had worked wonders on my gumlines, I immediately thought of another analogy: me as a country. When I heard the good news about the condition of my gums, I thought of myself as …
AUGUST 1, 2024 – Among the first devices that a student meets in a creative writing class are the simile and the metaphor. Likewise, among the initial cognitive tactics taught in law school is thinking analogically. As a practical matter, very early on in my life I’d resorted to similes, metaphors, and analogies, not so …
JULY 31, 2024 – (Cont.) Back home other Nisei were exerting a different kind of courage in quite a different sort of combat. One of the leading “soldiers” in this regard was a conscientious objector by the name of Gordon Hirabayashi, who worked tirelessly in the pursuit of justice. A Ghandi-like character, he exercised unusual …
JULY 30, 2024 – (Cont.) The most remarkable aspect of racial discrimination against Japanese-Americans is that it didn’t discourage most Nisei (people of Japanese parentage but born in the United States) from joining the war effort. They signed up because they felt it was their duty—as Americans and in defense of American ideals and principles—and …
JULY 29, 2024 – (Cont.) Ever since we invented ourselves, we humans have in the business of exploiting other humans. Every culture, nation, and people, it seems, has had a go at it. In the last decades of the 19th century, landowners in Hawai’i were breaking the backs of plantation laborers to bring in the …
JULY 28, 2024 – (Cont.) Every so often you read a book that changes who you are; I mean alters the way you look at the world and in a manner that you can’t forget or “undo.” For me the biography of Martin Luther King, Jr. by Taylor Branch was one such book—or rather, “books,” …
JULY 27, 2024 – We’re still at our Shangri-La on the shores of Grindstone Lake in northwest Wisconsin, and if you’ve followed my posts over the past few days, weeks, months, and now years, you know my attachment to this place. While I’m here I’m far more attuned to the dynamic beauty of our surroundings …
JULY 26, 2024 – Late yesterday—or rather, very early today; the hour was closing in on 1:00 a.m.—I was about to retire when the sound of the breeze off the lake drew me outside. Usually the wind abates with the approach of dusk, but the broad stationary front over this region has brought a deliciously …
JULY 25, 2024 – (Cont.) As she hobbled from the convent to the school building a hundred feet away, the good sister pointed out the exact spot where a few weeks back she’d stumbled, fallen and broken her hip. There she’d lain, wailing in agony until the associate pastor discovered her and called for an ambulance. After …
JULY 24, 2024 – For four days running we successfully entertained Russ and Kerri, our Red Cabin sojourners from afar. I say “successfully,” because they didn’t up and leave before their time, though admittedly, to do so, they would have to have stolen our keys—and car. Or walk. In fairness to my wife and me, …
JULY 23, 2024 – From the publisher: Eric is on assignment gathering material for this blog. His postings will continue tomorrow. Stay tuned . . . and in tune. Subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. © 2024 by Eric Nilsson
JULY 22, 2024 – Here I sit on the porch of the Red Cabin, surrounded by the sound of a soft rain dancing on a billion leaves. In the background thunder rumbles unevenly but continuously. Through the trees that line the berm along the lakeshore 75 feet away I catch glimpses of the lake and …
JULY 21, 2024 – Soon after I heard word that Biden was out of the race, I imagined that the cellular phone networks were pressed to the breaking point managing all the conference calls among Democratic operatives at all levels. Inside my head the perceived hee-hawing of a corral of donkeys sounded like the old …
JULY 21, 2024 – Most people aware of current events are familiar with the name, Evan Gershkovich, or more precisely, “Evan Gershkovich, reporter for The Wall Street Journal.” I am more familiar with the name because I’m more mindful of it; more attentive since Mr. Gershkovich is a fellow alumnus of Bowdoin College in Brunswick, …
JULY 20, 2024 – Yesterday we earthlings woke up to the news that a multi-billion company few of us had ever heard of was responsible for a widespread snafu affecting computer systems the world over. In dual irony the company—CrowdStrike—produces cybersecurity software. A glitch in the way updated code interacted with Microsoft Windows is what …
JULY 18, 2024 – My namesake niece, Erica Rhodes, has achieved fame—if not yet a fortune (I’m still waiting for her to buy us a mansion)—as a standout standup comedienne. Based in L.A., she appears at comedy clubs all over the country[1] and never fails to draw an enthusiastic crowd and hearty applause. This evening …
JULY 17, 2024 – For the Fourth of July our neighbor John was kind enough to accommodate some of our guests by opening up one of the seldom-used cabins on his compound, which borders our land on the other side of the “swamp woods.” In one of the bedrooms was a chalkboard on which someone …
JULY 16, 2024 – The other day while driving from the Twin Cities up through rural Wisconsin to the Red Cabin, I was passed by a car sporting a prominent Trump sticker. On the rear bumper was another sticker with lots of bold white lettering on a bright red background. The simple Trump label was …
JULY 15, 2024 – I’m certainly aware that aesthetics is an academic field unto itself; that for generations books, papers, lectures, debates, discussions have wrestled with the origins, nature and evolution of beauty—or more precisely, with our perception of it. Today I ambled along the lakeshore up and down the well-established trail. I’ve walked this …
JULY 14, 2024 – Today I finished reading The Story of Russia by Orlando Figes, a British scholar with serious academic chops and credentials. He’s written no fewer than nine books on Russian and European history, which have been translated into 30 languages. Yet, as is so often the case among academics, Figes has his …
JULY 13, 2024 – Yesterday evening, my wife and I along with other family members were among the sardines who packed ourselves into the Fitzgerald Theater in downtown St. Paul for the first of three 50th Anniversary shows of A Prairie Home Companion. If the marathon performance encroached on the bedtime of many a fan …
JULY 12, 2024 – After waking up this morning, I crept downstairs, and tiptoed into the dining where I’d left my “like new” MacBrook Pro overnight. It was on the dining room table and plugged in, but from six feet away I could see the charging light wasn’t on. Bad sign, and sure enough, when …
JULY 11, 2024 – The saga continues, but before I provide today’s installment, I have to comment on the word “saga.” It’s an old hardy Scandinavian word that has survived wars, plagues, famines, volcanoes (think “Iceland”), and modernity (so far). It means “story,” in old Norse, modern Scandinavian languages, and English, of course. In the …