News of my World
The Songs for a (P&u) Departure (4): “Once upon a time...
We're told that Nov. 15 will be the last day for Pints&union in New Albany prior to the pub's inglorious "Hail Mary" flight to...
Archipelago Travels
Technically Challenged
40 Years in Beer (Book II), Part 71: A-B, Molotov cocktails,...
Previously: 40 Years in Beer (Book II), Part 70: Made-for-megabrewing stylelessness at the G.A.B.F. in 1997.
Quite apart from the attractions built into the Great...
Miscellany
OTA Archive from June, 2020: “There, there. People are dying, so...
In New Albany, Harvest Homecoming is once again under way after a year's layoff owing to COVID safety protocols. This column originally appeared at...
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Not Hip & Fewer Hops: My bucket beer list is NOT served with sliced...
Originally published at Food & Dining Magazine on 27 September 2021.
Mr. Creosote: "Better get a bucket."
Maître d': "booKAY?"
I’ve often been accused of being a cynic,...
Diary: It’s very disappointing when independent small business owners become science deniers
Recently at Pints&union we received a cyber complaint from a disgruntled customer.
To his credit, the patron made no effort to conceal his identity, which...
Even the Commies know I’m not a Communist
Whenever locals refer to me as a communist, it strikes me far less as an insult than the understandably ineffectual flailing of dullards.
It also...
40 Years in Beer, Part Eight: The origins of a European travel (and beer)...
Previously: 40 Years in Beer, Part Seven: The K & H Forever (Heartland Adagio).
In August I’ll be 62, and I’ve no idea how it...
Diary
EXILE ON SPRING STREET: In defense of godlessness in everyday life
After much thought, I've decided to retire the "On the Avenues" identifier after all. As we enter 2022, OTA becomes "Exile on Spring Street."
Until...
ON THE AVENUES: When love and hate collide, or my father’s dalliance with the...
Originally published at NA Confidential on 21 August 2020. I thought about this essay earlier today, after reading a post by a friend at...
Diary: Looking for a good biography of Eugene V. Debs? This isn’t it
This being an election year — and accordingly, utterly infuriating on a daily basis for the MAGA stupidity it embodies — I thought it...
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...
ON THE AVENUES: Welcome to “Pagan Life,” a weekly column devoted to heathens, infidels,...
ON THE AVENUES is the name of my longtime column at the former NA Confidential. It makes the passage to Exile on Spring Street....
Recipes for Chaos
Donald Niebyl tells the amazing story of Yugoslavia’s pavilion at Expo...
In 1987 for the first and only time, my European tour itinerary included Yugoslavia. It was fascinating for all the usual reasons, and at...
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The abstract modernism of “monuments and memory” in Tito’s Yugoslavia
Controversies over the newer monuments in Yugoslavia also came up as we talked. We discussed the memorial at Tjentište in Bosnia-Hercegovina. Ćosić argued that...
40 Years in Beer (Book II), Part 75: My shoes are filled with Volga...
Previously: 40 Years in Beer (Book II), Part 74: Down a rabbit hole, deep into the Belgian beer paradise (1998).
Insofar as ordinary Americans know to...
Archie’s axiom — or, beer’s ephemeral pass-through nature
Saturday evening we attended a performance of Urinetown: The Musical at Derby Dinner Playhouse in Clarksville, which is celebrating 50 years in existence; long...
