Tom Thumb's World Travels


I gave a sneak-peek at my upcoming book and its hero at the Barnum Museum last week. Everyone was quite surprised how popular Tom Thumb was. It seems so obvious to me now, but if I had seen someone else give this presentation five years ago, I probably would have been shocked, too. More to come!

Silkie Chicken


Tried our first Silkie Chicken the other day. Blue skin and flesh...fascinating eating experience. The one we had was a Bantam, I think, because it was small, about the size of a Cornish game hen (bred for the first time here in Connecticut). I quite enjoyed it, though the one we had was clearly a 'wild' bird with very little breast meat. A little Old Bay seasoning, a dipping sauce, and Amy and I ripped into it with gusto. Try it out for yourself!

Margaux and Lasagna


My wife Amy made a delicious lasagna last night, with garlic bread, and to accompany it we picked out a 2003 Segla Margaux. I have never been disappointed with a Margaux, and this was no exception. My wife has a slightly less impressive record - she has disappointed me twice with her cooking. Of course, since she has made thousands of meals, that is a pretty solid batting average.


Anyway, a Margaux seems to me to be the perfect French wine for a lasagna, although Italian purists are no doubt having fits when I say that. But some other Bordeaux would be too heavy, I think. What about you?

Savor Connecticut


We had a lot of fun at Savor Connecticut again this year - over a hundred people showed up, and we got to taste some of the treasures of Connecticut, from Nardelli's subs to Avery's Soda to Fascia's Chocolates.


Wendy Murphy at the Naugatuck Historical Society puts it together every year, and does an amazing job. I hope everyone supports their local society - in this case one of the best in the state.


Snowshoe Friday


Had a lot of fun snowshoeing today - about five miles through the backcountry, off trail. There were tons of tracks, mostly deer, some coyote.


Finding your way through the winter woods is a privilege. Enjoy the snow as much as possible - it is our New England heritage, after all!


Dr. Sax by Jack Kerouac

Dr. Sax is one of Jack Kerouac’s most troubling books for readers, peering behind the curtain of his childhood rather than exploring those later years of Beats and bodhisattvas. Nevertheless, it remains a startling achievement, unique not only among Kerouac’s works, but among those books that it seems to mirror. It is primarily a book about growing up, similar to such European classics as Alain Fournier’s Le Grand Meaulnes, Hermann Hesse’s Demian, or Jean Giono’s Blue Boy. These books all explore the “magic” of youth by allowing adult readers to see through the eyes of children again, when the magic was real.

Kerouac anchors us in the real world of industrial Lowell with wonderful details like: “The Huge Trees of Lowell lament the July evening in a song begins in meadow and ends up above Bridge Street, the Bunker Hill farms and cottages of Centralville — to the sweet night that flows along the Concord in South Lowell where railroads cry the roundroll — to the massive lake like archeries and calms of the Boulevard lover lanes of cars, nightslap, and fried clams of Pete’s and Glennie’s ice cream…” He also gives us the games and problems of the children that live in that world: “In the bottom of the 8th Scot comes to bat for his licks, wearing his pitching jacket, and swinging the bat around loosely in his powerful hands.” The prose has built up a brick and mortar city and we believe in it. We must, because Kerouac is about to take us into what Alain Fournier called the lost domaine.

As Lowell experiences an epic flood, the mysterious and semi-mythical figure of Dr. Sax swoops into the foreground. He is trying to fight the minions of the great world snake, which is no myth, and really does live curled up underneath the mansion on Snake Hill. This fantastic battle of good and evil is woven into the tapestry of baseball games and ice cream stands. “Blook is a huge bald fat giant somewhat ineffectual who cannot advance through the alley but reaches over his 20-foot arms along the all tops like great glue spreading, with no expression on his floury pastry face — an awful ugh — a beast of the first water, more gelatinous than terrifying.” Suddenly the magic of imagination takes over and the line of actuality wavers and shakes. We picture our own childhood battles with monsters, so much more real and important than a fight on the playground with a bully.

In other books of this genre, the authors always pull us back into adulthood at the end of the book. The loss of childhood is universal, and so the plot ends with the child realizing that he must leave the magic behind, and enter a different world. Not so with Dr. Sax. Kerouac’s literary mirror is from a dark funhouse, twisting the classic logic of the novel of education, leaving the reader unsettled and vexed. Kerouac muses at one point: “Eternity hears hollow voices in a rock? Eternity hears ordinary voices in the parlor.” Those ordinary parlors of Lowell are the place for battles against absolute evil more than some nether realm. And so Kerouac shows us how the fantastic world of childhood is twisted like the great world snake itself into the fabric of reality, and will never let go.

Originally published at Empty Mirror Books.

Franz Douskey

Got a chance to see Franz Douskey again at the Big Book Club Getaway. He lives nearby, and we get to see him occasionally at local events. I'm most impressed with his poetry, although his anecdotes of all the people he has met over the decades are always a delight.

Deer in the Backyard

Deer come through our yard (or nearby) every day. There is a little patch of swamp between the houses, and I'm sure that's where they live, and then come up the hill to feed during the day. I could track them back to their bedroom, but I prefer to leave them in peace.

Ben's Chili Bowl

While in D.C. we visited Ben's Chili Bowl, made famous by Bill Cosby's patronage, and made even more famous when President Obama stopped in when he first came to the White House.
As with many 'famous' restaurants of this type, I did not have high expectations for the actual food, though the atmosphere was immediately enjoyable.
However, while waiting in line, the smell of the smoked sausages on the grill began to change my mind.
And then, we bit into the famed chili half-smoke dog. Unbelievable. Really a delicious chili sauce, not too spicy and very flavorful. The sausage itself was complex, as well, far beyond any mere hot dog. Though Amy and I visited several high-end restaurants in D.C., this remained our single favorite dish of the entire trip.