All posts by rexmerritt

Agitprop/Propaganda

Generation Harangue

Pro-Palestinian/anti-Israel demonstrations roiling our college campuses and city streets have manifested into the sort of antisemitism Americans would’ve believed ourselves immune. That these moils are predominated by a generation we will bequeath this nation portends badly for our country’s future. Continue reading Generation Harangue →

Lost Wages

Slapdash and Slipshod

During the three-day period of November 16th-18th, Las Vegas may experience terrific examples of faulty vision leading to lousy execution. If so, these will become prime lessons in reputable urban planning programs throughout America.

Lessons in what to avoid.

In November, the Big Mayberry will host a Grand Prix Formula One race. The first of what’s now scheduled as annual occurrences. The 2023 version portends to be Fiasco One. Continue reading Slapdash and Slipshod →

Lost Wages, Struwwelpeter for Adults

Let the Music Play

Relocating to Las Vegas has given me greater appreciation of classical music. Growing up, many compositions heard today often provided the ambience to my 1960s boyhood in Quarropas, New York.

Besides the expected rhythm and blues records mother selected for our turntable, she also purchased 120 Music Masterpieces. If you’re old enough you should recall John Williams, the plummy English actor not Star Wars movies composer, who pitched them. Classical orchestrations filled this four-album compilation. If remembered correctly, mother usually had these spinning while cleaning house.

For some reason I still hear them best from summertime. Likely being home from elementary school on summer vacation increased these observances. Amazing how she could make and leave me lunch in the icebox before going to work, then return home after a full day of toil and freshen our home.

Now I can fully appreciate her efforts. Then it was simply “normal.” That is if the younger me ever contemplated it. Oh, quite unlikely. Continue reading Let the Music Play →

Quarropas

Some Days Before

After the first commemoration of the September 11th attacks, I started observing them with less rigor.

I’d known World Trade Center victims. Hard not to have if one was a New Yorker. Several were work acquaintances. Two were social acquaintances. Stat Man and the Michigan Guy. The first I’d known over 10 years, the second maybe 14 months at most. Yet both have settled in the same firmament of memory. Continue reading Some Days Before →

Pop Culture

Too Cool for This Room

Ennui. Estrangement. Existentialism? L’Avventura.

The 1960 Italian movie is populated by figures who are unmoored in the modern world. They drift maybe searching for new anchorages or are just content to keep meandering until running aground.

An ideal movie to watch again during the last languor of summer. Which is when the story reveals itself. Continue reading Too Cool for This Room →

Quarropas

Long. Languid. Like August.

August is the reason the French refer to September as “reentry.”

Like some Old World countries, the Belle Republique takes a month off after the bombast and celebrations of July. Americans should do that here in the New World but wouldn’t this just be the thing to interrupt our motorcycle rallies and guns shows? Besides, we must grudge the notion of vacation. Isn’t it a national trait? Instead of seeing time off as deserved, ah, earned, business and our hamsters on wheels go-getting natures insist we disdain time away from the millstone.

That’s just wrong. Continue reading Long. Languid. Like August. →