Artwork by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter On Friday nights, my wife and I will typically open a bottle of wine and settle in to watch some streaming TV, usually a movie or a limited series, but this last weekend, after supper, I went into the family room and started sorting out some of our …
Read
Category:Michael DiMilo
House of Trumpenstein
Artwork by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter In Mary Woolstencraft Shelley’s class horror novel Frankenstein, a demented mad scientist seeks to kindle life in a body assembled from body parts of the recent dead. In the film Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, the nefarious Dr. Evil created an exact miniature duplicate of himself, his Mini-Me. Both …
Read
Dialogues on the Big Bully Pulpit: Playground Politics
Artwork by Michael DiMilo By Devotee-DeBusherre Featuring the Fabulous Dadbots: Dave S., Mark M., Mark O., Dennis C., Paul C., and Geoff Carter This got wordy, I’ll try and distill it first. Though I don’t like the term for the campaign—bullying—(I think many scoff at it saying…”Well (male, gravel pitched, voice),…it’s a tough world out …
Read
The Pen in Hand’s Guide to the Movies: Ringing in the New Year
Maasaak, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (Originally posted in December, 2020) By Geoff Carter We thought we had it made after getting out of 2020, but this has been another hard year—remembering everything that happened is painful—but we have to; if we do not remember, we’ll be doomed to repeat the same mistakes yet again. …
Read
The Pen in Hand Presents a Michael DiMilo Production…
Babs and Knuckles in their Holiday Special Deck the Halls Artwork by Michael DiMilo Video and Story by Michael DiMilo In memory of Dave Bolyard The holiday season is all about family tradition. Whether it’s about going to Midnight Mass, carving the Christmas ham, avoiding the mother-in-law’s homemade eggnog, or sampling Grandma’s oyster stew, traditions …
Read
Birds-Eye View
Artwork by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter I received a somewhat surprising gift for my birthday recently. My wife gave me a bird feeder fitted with a digital camera that streams images of our backyard friends directly onto our handheld devices. The pictures are brilliant, sharp, and completely engaging. It’s as if the birds are …
Read
The Pen in Hand’s Guide to a Vintage TV Christmas
“Oscar the Elf” Photo by Geoff Carter
Nightmare on Main Street
Artwork by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter As I get older, I occasionally catch myself repeating things. Maybe a story, maybe a joke, maybe a memory, maybe a point. That’s just part of aging—one of its inevitabilities. A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a piece about gun violence titled What’s It Going to Take? inspired by …
Read
“Just Like the Ones I Used to Know”: The Pen in Hand’s Guide to Vintage Christmas Movies
Photo by Geoffrey Carter (Originally published, December 10, 2021) By Geoff Carter Well, the Christmas season is upon us in full force. The commercials are everywhere. We’ve seen that ad for the car—or Energizer Bunny, wrapped in a bow and sitting in the driveway on Christmas morning at least one hundred times. Getting ready for this holiday season, …
Read
The Slow Grind
Artwork by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter “The wheels of justice turn slowly, but grind exceedingly fine” –Ecclesiastes 8:10 Last week, nearly two years after the attack on the Capitol Building, a jury found Stewart Rhodes, leader of the far-right extremist Oath Keepers militia, guilty of seditious conspiracy, obstructing certification of the election, and destroying …
Read
Oh, Christmas Tree
Artwork by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter (Originally posted in December, 2019) Each year, in the family holiday tradition, my wife and I venture out to buy our Christmas tree. We’re lucky enough to live across the street from a big tree lot so we don’t have very far to go—we can walk right over. …
Read
The Pen in Hand Guide to Spinning Classic Christmas Vinyl
Photo by The Retro Store on Unsplash By Geoff Carter (Originally posted in December 2019) While the Couch Potato will always be slavishly devoted to his TV home entertainment center, this week he will be putting down the universal remote in order to turn his focus solely on another entertainment form—music. Part of the reason for this departure …
Read