Photo by Nicolas J Leclercq on Unsplash By Geoff Carter Attribution: Swan on its nest by Sean Goodhart, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons Taking Wing: Film Review of The Swan The third in Wes Anderson’s quartet of Roald Dahl short story film adaptations is The Swan, a somewhat harrowing but inspirational tale of strength, resolution, and righteousness. In this tale, …
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Month:October 2023
Kickass and Speaker of the House
Attribution: Utah Reps, PDM-owner, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that the keeper is in such a state of high concern over the Repub’s inability to select a speaker of the house that he has been driven to barroom poetry: THE SPEAKER Me thinks that we will never see Speaker …
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Kickass and Pocketknives
Attribution: bergsten, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, notes that the keeper is among those knife-carrying males who inherited the pocket-knife habit from his father when it was a societal-wide practice. There existed among some of the working-class knife carriers a curious “game” whereby you could not deny another …
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Kickass and Canada Guests
Photo by Bill Stokes By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that the keeper joins Phyllis in a cooperative effort to shore up relationships between the US and Canada by hosting Phyllis’s sister and brother-in-law Joan and Bill Rewuski who live in Warman, Saskatchewan where Phyllis was born and raised. With the global inclination …
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The Nature of Teflon
Artwork by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter There was always that guy in high school who got away with everything—a Ferris Buehler. We all knew him. Maybe he was a smooth talker, a star athlete, the class president, or the valedictorian. Maybe he had that air of innocence and was the last one anyone would …
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Kickass and Norwegian Dancers
Attribution: Torvild, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, hands it off to the keeper today as he and Phyllis watched the Stoughton High School dancers perform a morning show at Vista West. It was fantastic, and it made the keeper think of his dear old Norwegian mother, and to …
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Kickass and War Worry
Attribution: Tasnim News Agency, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that the keeper simply does not have worry room for the latest war, and the participants will have to conduct it in all of its stupidity without him. One war at a time is about all he can handle in the …
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Kickass and Phyllis Photo Art
Photo by Bill Stokes By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports the keeper was in the Vista West audience when Phyllis presented her debut “Phillis Phixes Photos” photo-artist show in which she used some of her prize-winning photos to demonstrate how the use of a wide variety of computer programs can not only improve …
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Kickass and Kyle’s Screening
Photo by Douglas Bagg on Unsplash By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that the keeper and Phyllis, having sat in on a screening of nephew Kyle Houseman-Stokes’s movie “My Dead Friend Chloe,” featuring Morgan Freeman and Ed Harris among others, passes along the word that Kyle has done himself proud in navigating the forbidding world of …
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The Pen in Hand Guide to the Movies: Review of “The Ratcatcher”
Attribution: Photo by Nicolas J Leclercq on Unsplash Smelling a Rat: Review of The Ratcatcher Attribution: H. Zell, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons During my teaching days, when I was a Home & Hospital instructor and working with students in their homes who were too sick to go to school (these were extended and serious illnesses like cancer …
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Kickass and Sports Fans
Photo by Phyllis Stokes By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, joins the keeper in observing sports fans as they absorb defeats and switch sports, which takes the keeper back to his Chicago Trib days in the 1980’s when he spent an autumn attending pro and college sporting events to look at the fans instead …
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Kickass Talks to a Sparrow
Attribution: Paul, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that the Balcony Sparrow was back, perched on the cold steel edge just below the thermometer that showed a new low temperature for the year. The two of them talked: Kickass: “Cold, huh!” BS: “Yeah, and a lot more to …
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