Attribution: DonkeyHotey, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports the keeper passing the word that when it comes to calling reporters derogatory names, the POTUS—with his “piggy” and “bad person” is a minor leaguer. As he thinks back over the years at some of the names he was called, …
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Month:December 2025
The Pen in Hand Guide to the Movies: Review of “Eddington”
Don’t Fence Me In: Film Review of Eddington ★★★☆ Illustration by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter Films about conspiracy theories seem to be everywhere lately. After reviewing Yorgos Lanthimos’s Bugonia, an incisively caustic black comedy about the conflicts between reality, beliefs, and alienation, I watched Ari Aster’sEddington, a neo-Western set during the Covid lockdown in 2020 …
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Kickass and Day of Infamy
Attribution: Photographer: UnknownUnknown Retouched by: Mmxx, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, joins the keeper and Phyllis on this “day that will live in infamy” to suggest that the country is under a sneak attack that is more debilitating than any Pearl Harbor, and the defense against it has …
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Kickass and Girls’ Ride Home
Attribution: Photo by A n v e s h on Unsplash By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports the keeper identifying with FBI director Kash Patel on the possible fallout of giving girlfriends a ride home. When it happened to the keeper, that fallout literally turned his life around. He was doing the chivalrous task of giving …
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Kickass and the Speed of Electricity
Attribution: Thomas Booker (CoderThomasB), CC0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, observes, along with the keeper and Phyllis, that life is a continuous process of learning from the curious among us, such as Louie the hired man who once challenged the horse barn ghost to come out and account for itself. …
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The Pen in Hand’s Guide to a Vintage TV Christmas
“Oscar the Elf” Photo by Geoff Carter
Kickass and Blowing Boats
Attribuiton: U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Adrian White, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, listens with one ear as the keeper mumbles about being descended from immigrants who stomped across the country using greed and indifference to brutally destroy the native culture and its harmonious …
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Problem Child
Attribution: DonkeyHotey, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Geoff Carter I was a high school teacher for thirty-four years before I entered the blissful ranks of the retired. Most of my time as an instructor was spent in Home and Hospital, a program designed to provide instruction for students too gravely ill to attend school. …
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Kickass and Dog Ski Wax
Attribution: EgorovaSvetlana, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, indulges the keeper as he wallows in a memory of the early days of cross-country skiing—wooden skies with metal bindings that required constant attention from the rapidly evolving world of ski wax. To replace out-of-season trout fishing or grouse hunting, the …
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Kickass and Ice Floes
Attribution: Photo by Ekaterina Moroshilova on Unsplash By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, joins the keeper in viewing the onset of winter with more than the usual trepidation as he tries not to dwell on vague thoughts of an Eskimo culture that once floated its elderly and infirmed off on ice flows as a means of final …
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Kickass and Leftovers
Attribution: Photo by Gurth Bramall on Unsplash By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, will be joining the keeper and Phyllis in their efforts at improving relationships with some of the other pack species by viewing the consumption of leftovers as “returning to the kill” in the mode of lions, wolves or hyenas. While there is different terminology …
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The Pen in Hand Guide to the Movies: Review of “Frankenstein”
Monsters: Film Review of Frankenstein ★★★1/2 Illustration by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter Mary Woolstencraft Shelly’s gothic novel Frankenstein has gone through as many—or more—film iterations than any other horror story, except perhaps the Dracula franchise. Depending on the critical lens being used to examine it, the story can be seen as addressing issues of …
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