News of my World
40 Years in Beer, Part Nineteen: Moscow skyline in twilight, 1989
Previously: 40 Years in Beer, Part Eighteen: In Ostrava, the beer of the people at the factory gates.
In the autumn of 1989 my travels...
Archipelago Travels
Technically Challenged
40 Years in Beer, Part Thirty-Two: Vienna’s “Old Whisky Malt Waltz,”...
Previously: 40 Years in Beer, Part Thirty-One: Euro beer travel 1991, as history ends and begins again.
In early 1991 I deigned to meet with...
Miscellany
Beware, yuletide oupistidophobes, ‘cuz I’m watching you
(This guest column first appeared in December of 2009 at the former New Albany Tribune. It has been updated and lightly tweaked.)
Phobias are among...
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ON THE AVENUES: Mourning in America
There are no hard and fast rules about mourning in America. In the beginning, we inherited primarily English customs, as embraced, modified and eventually...
The toilet seat from Jim Morrison’s blue bus (1999 – 2016)
We must rewind all the way to 1996, and the FOSSILS club newsletter "Walking the Dog," to find the first mention of the blue...
Take me, I’m existentially yours (or, crisis—what crisis?)
This essay appeared as an "On the Avenues" column on January 1, 2019. For those reading from afar, be aware that in metro Louisville,...
Roger’s year in music, 2021
Music does something to me, and I’ve never been able to explain exactly why. It just happens. Sometimes when I walk into a supermarket,...
Diary
Coffey vs. Dickey in the 2nd? Slice me off a piece of THAT
Told you so.
The Green Mouse reports that Dan Coffey—for decades a Democrat, then an independent, and now a Republican (somewhere a Falangist has lost...
Welcome to Nawbany, Episode 2: Knee deep in the hoopla
Roger has removed himself from active involvement in the local resistance movement because the retaliation isn’t worth it. But sometimes the sheer vapid inanity...
Diary: Nature teaches beasts to know their friends
Title credit courtesy of Shakespeare (Coriolanus).
During The Edge’s and Bono’s recent Tiny Desk Concert at NPR, Bono introduced the U2 song "Stuck in a...
Shane’s Excellent New Words: NIMBY versus YIMBY, though not to neglect BANANA
Now I'm hiding in Honduras
I'm a desperate man
Send lawyers, guns and money
The shit has hit the fan
-- Warren Zevon
"Shane's Excellent New Words" was a...
Welcome to Roger’s web site, an “Exile on Spring Street”
"Exile is a dream of a glorious return. Exile is a vision of revolution: Elba, not St Helena. It is an endless paradox: looking...
Recipes for Chaos
Travel: Sofia, Bulgaria in June 1987
Yesterday, a review of a book about Bulgaria during the Cold War.
https://www.rogerbaylor.com/2021/06/02/books-the-cold-war-from-the-margins-in-bulgaria/
34 years ago Tuesday (June 1, 1987) I arrived in Sofia, capital of...