Photo by Geoffrey Carter 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. Sometimes it’s hard to find the spirit of Christmas amongst all …
Read
Kickass and Illegal Order
Attribution: Hillebrand Steve, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that the keeper, after getting Phyllis’s approval, is seeking reactivation of his military status so he can see what happens when he refuses to obey an unlawful military order to help murder men in …
Read
Kickass and Broken Tail
Attribution: T. H. Heard (engraver), Heard, T. H. (engraver, active ca. 1879) (Engraver) Harper’s magazine, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that the keeper, ever anxious to share his vast store of rural knowledge with innocent citified friends, notes that growing up “country” means being surrounded by critters …
Read
The Pen in Hand Guide to Spinning Classic Christmas Vinyl
Photo by The Retro Store on Unsplash By Geoff Carter While those of us at The Pen in Hand 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
Kickass and Calling Reporters Names
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, …
Read
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 …
Read
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 …
Read
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 …
Read
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. …
Read
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 …
Read
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. …
Read