A story of Tom Pendergast: “This was back in the ’30s. These kids were freezing. They slept in their coats. They had no coal. The mom went to ask Pendergast for help, and right away a truck pulled up with a huge load of coal. Every night, ever after, before they ate dinner, this woman […]
Read More Gangsters“The French have a horror of the smell of cooking food, whereas Americans find it appetizing; in the nineteenth century the first French Rothschild went so far in this aversion as to have the food brought from the kitchen to the dining room on an odourless, because underground, train.” –Edmund White, The Flaneur (I couldn’t […]
Read More Fetishes: Annotated Bibliography*Note: this writing reflects nothing on actual, true-life Schurmans, and their actual “issues,” as I solely lay claim to said “issues,” and all the other Schurmans are wonderful people who have generously tolerated both my serious and my flippant remarks for 33 years. All genealogical information is based on my sloppy and cursory clicking through Ancestry.com. The Schurmans certainly did not come over on the Mayflower– they came from Amsterdam some time later. It is true that many Schurmans remain in Canada, while I am descended from those who returned to America, obviously because they realized how awesome the colonies turned out to be, or (more likely) because they were not laid back enough to make it as Canadians.
Read More Where I’m From“We have it in our power to begin the world again.” –Thomas Paine “There will be no cooperation for the rest of the year.” –John McCain I just got back from the southwest, where I met and insulted a charming cowgirl. I expected Tombstone, Arizona to be sort of like Frontierland at Disneyland. Instead, we […]
Read More Paine ‘n’ McCain at the OK Corral
Going On 