DEPARTMENT OF ODD SOCKS IV – by Rob Lopresti The Christmas season is coming and my friend Peter Berryman has an early present for you. Peter co-writes with Lou Berryman (no relation) some of the world’s funniest songs. But this month his website features a complete rewrite of America’s most famous Christmas poem. Same stanza […]

UNABRIDGED TO NOWHERE by Robert Lopresti A long time ago my mother-in-law decided to buy me a big present for a special occasion and asked what I would like. I suggested a certain dictionary. Later she called me from a bookstore. She had told the salesman that her son, a writer, wanted a Webster’s Third […]

BURNING QUESTION by Rob Lopresti Lately I seem to be drawing most of my column inspirations from Melodie. (More on that in a week or two.) As my father used to say, great minds run in the same gutter. Her terrific piece about the horrors of being next to a wildfire reminded me of a […]

THE GRAND ALLUSION By Rob Lopresti I feel like Humpty Dumpty today. Well, no I don’t. I tell a lie. But if I did feel like Humpty Dumpty how do you think I would feel? Fragile? Shattered? Full of bad cholesterol? I have been reading The Oxford Dictionary of Allu- sions, by Andrew Delahunty, Sheila […]

CRIME AND THE LITTLE MAN by Rob Lopresti My friend Marian recently sent me an article by Paul Johnson that appeared in the English magazine The Spectator. Near the end of the piece there is a wonderful story about the French painter Matisse. Apparently he was once asked who was his favorite American artist. “Monsieur […]

ELECTORAL CHARACTER STUDIES by Rob Lopresti It is my fond hope that by the time you read this we will know who the next president will be. As I write this the suspense is killing me. I spent the afternoon at my party’s county headquarters, phone banking for the Candidate Of My Choice. I have […]

TEMPORARY AUTHORS by Rob Lopresti I want to tell you about some authors you have never heard of and I have to start out with a warning. You are going to think I’m making these people up, especially since a previous column I more or less did that. But I swear on my next royalty […]