Attribution: Photo by Jerrick Castillo on Unsplash By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports the keeper and Phyllis and their Easter dinner guests in a post ham-dinner stupor lingering over dessert and coffee exchanging childhood memories. Some of those recited memories were old enough to have long beards and others from younger Easter eaters were as in-tune …
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The Pen in Hand Guide to the Movies: Review of “The Perfect Neighbor”
Handling the Truth: Review of The Perfect Neighbor ★★★1/2 Illustration by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter Ever since the Lumiere Brothers produced “actuality films” (single shot recordings of real-life events like train arrivals and galloping horses), various iterations of cinematic travelogues, and Joseph Flaherty’s groundbreaking 1922 documentary Nanook of the North, documentary filmmakers have sought to …
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Happy Easter from The Pen in Hand!!
Photos by Geoff Carter After a long night of egg delivery, it’s time to do some Chicago barhopping…. Well done, you wily wabbits!!
Kickass and Marsh Hawk Eggs
Attribution: Photo by Ben Lande on Unsplash By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, joins the keeper in noting on this Easter morning that maybe one of the reasons he has lived so long is to give him time to make amends, or at least apologize for some of the thoughtless things he did as a farm boy …
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Kickass and Sexy Saturday
Attribution: Photo by Ajay Kumar Jana on Unsplash By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that the keeper, in his careful study of this day between Good Friday and Easter, designates it as “Sexy Saturday.” The designation is obvious considering that both the Easter Bunny and colored eggs were historically chosen as Easter symbols for their representation …
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Kickass and Diversion Scheme
Attribution: Photo by FETHI BOUHAOUCHINE on Unsplash By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports the keeper, in his efforts to use diversion to help with deodorizing the Trump zoo stench, shares a boyhood memory of spending two days to buy BBs when the clerk at the Farmers’ Store apparently thought the kid standing by the peanut barrel …
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Kickass and Double-Breasted Suit
Attribution: Marcus Kaiser 【 MqaTalk 】, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reminds the keeper of his responsibility in guiding the Easter style dress parade, an honor which he earned many years ago by purchasing the very last double-breasted men’s suit in the Midwest, maybe the entire country. Double …
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Breathe
Attribution: Photo by Geoff Carter By Geoff Carter To say we are living in a tumultuous time is a bit of an understatement. While this may not be the very worst of times, it’s getting there. First of all, we live in one of the least equitable societies in our history, where according to the Congressional …
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Kickass and the Big April Fool
Illustration by Michael DiMilo By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, agrees with the keeper and Phyllis that the fun went out of April Fool’s Day when you could no longer tell Mom there was an elephant out on the lawn or a mouse in the cereal box. And, of course, in this day and …
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Kickass and White House Dogs
Attribution: Maarten Honnebier, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports the keeper in possession of a secret White House memo that seeks the services of guard dogs to accompany ICE agents on their visits to schools and parking lots where very dangerous little foreign felons lurk. The secret document …
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Kickass and Dumb Legislators
Attribution: Gage Skidmore from Peoria, AZ, United States of America, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, joins the Keeper and Phyllis and the rest of Wisconsin in wondering just what the hell it is that puts utter fools in too many of its Washington legislative posts, and can anything …
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The Pen in Hand Guide to the Movies: Review of “Nuremberg”
★★★ History 101: Review of Nuremberg Illustration by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter We all know the famous Santayana quote, “”Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”, yet we continue to stupidly ignore—and thereby repeat—our past mistakes. War, ethnic cleansing, genocide, and human trafficking have not only continued to exist—they have …
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