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Photo: Alexis Lamster/Flickr Three or so years ago my friend, the writer Max Falkowitz, took me to Eisenberg’s for a taste of old-fashioned New York lunch counter food and attitude. We almost got the famous tuna melt (the very one pictured above), but ordered a whitefish melt instead and watched the counterman go quietly wild with rage. The sandwich was life-changing. So naturally Max was the one to talk to about, well, all of the above.

The Boston Bruins coach in the 1930's and 1940's was a man by the name of Art Ross. One of the premier defensemen of his era, Art always considered his first Stanley Cup win with Kenora in 1907 to be his greatest thrill in hockey. His second greatest thrill? Being front and center for Mel Hill's three overtime winners in the 1939 Stanley Cup playoffs. Th… ncG1vNJzZmimmKG1qr%2FTqKmyZqOqr7TAwJyiZ5ufonyxe9OhnGaklZyyr7CMqJ1mq6WZsaa6jJ2cmqyYYrqmuIyhoKWk

Thank you so much for reading The Wilder Things. If you’ve enjoyed this newsletter so far, please consider becoming a paid subscriber! $5 a month gets you every single newsletter, the ability to comment, and access to the archives. Also —if you get even just three people to subscribe, you get a discount! So smash that subscribe and share button. I am so grateful for your support. Folks, I write to you today with exciting news.

I’ve been thinking about how to tell you about the events of the past few days. It’s going to require a couple of posts. The best way to start is by offering you the text of a talk I gave at a meeting in Oxford last week. My speech was about what Andrei Tarkovsky’s great 1966 film Andrei Ru… ncG1vNJzZmiqn5mxs7HHnqlnq6WXwLWtwqRlnKedZL1wwMeeZKWdo6i8r3nOn2SappSnsqp50a6ZpZ2m

In the very first entry here, I referenced The Turning by Leslie Phillips, an album that came into my life in 1987 when I was eleven years old. I had not heard anything like it before. As an already-frustrated preacher’s kid, it was as if she had crawled inside my heart and mind, lifted the things I felt but didn’t have language for, and set them to music. With The Turning, I had the words and permission to feel those repressed emotions.

Today — July 8 — is recognized in certain circles as “Combat Jack Day.” In that spirit, I thought it apropos to re-publish a piece I wrote back on December 29, 2017. 🕊️ — Manny Faces (www.mannyfaces.com) After mentioning him many times while he was alive, I have invoked the name and work of New York City independent artist/activist Daniel “Majesty” Sanchez in every talk or lecture I have delivered since his death.

(A disclosure: I met John Szwed at the American Croatian Club of Anacortes when he visited in 2018, already well into his research on Harry Smith. He knew I’d been studying Harry’s early years in our hometown. I’ve been here since 1962, the year my immigrant grandfather passed away, the steeple blew off our church, and the Smiths’ old Apex cannery collapsed into Guemes Channel. John described his plans for a full biography of Harry.

It is the worst of times, and these days it's even worse than that. For those of us who live in the depressive mode, my default setting is melancholy, at best. On a pretty good day, I'm shadowed by mild sorrows that sometimes can't be defined. Through sobriety, therapy, and the right medication, I've learned to try to live through these moments, because the other options are regret about the past (depression), or fear of the future (anxiety).

by Veronica Phillips At the beginning of Wes Craven’s Scream, we meet Casey Becker (Drew Barrymore). Casey is an attractive, flirty teenage girl who is home alone and getting ready to watch a scary movie; in short, she is quintessential slasher bait. Her only potential saving grace — given that slasher films tend to let their most famous actresses last the longest — is the fact that she is played by ‘80s child superstar Drew Barrymore.