Steveawiggins

LATEST ARTICLES ( 4649 )

• In Pictures

  

  Old photographs are haunting. One thing I’ve long noticed about high school pictures from the early twentieth century is that those kids look much more grown... Read more

  Posted on 02 June 2023 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Kenyan Mourning

  

  We ignore religion at our peril.  I may be a voice crying in the wilderness here, but just because church numbers are declining it doesn’t mean religion still... Read more

  Posted on 01 June 2023 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• First Second

  

  The thing about self-published books is that titles sometimes confuse. I’d read Linda Zimmermann’s Hudson Valley UFOs without realizing it was a sequel. Read more

  Posted on 31 May 2023 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Spider Planet

  

  Misnomers aren’t uncommon when it comes to click-bait. I’ve fallen victim more than a few times. But such misdirection is probably as old as humanity, and is... Read more

  Posted on 30 May 2023 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Denver Memories

  

  It may be a strange thing to say (or write, as the case may be) but I was kind of hoping to spend some extra time at the Denver Airport. Read more

  Posted on 29 May 2023 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Cat Nipped

  

  Holy Horror began with movies from 1960 on. You see, I had watched the 1982 remake of Cat People without ever watching the original from 1942. The remake has... Read more

  Posted on 28 May 2023 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Finding Yourself

  

  Sometimes I look, fascinated.  At tracking info, that is.  I once ordered an item from Montreal, which is, I’m told, in the province of Quebec, Canada.  The... Read more

  Posted on 27 May 2023 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• The Goodreads Zone

  

  It happened on Goodreads.  I suspect she had no idea how much that simple “like” meant to me.  Social media is too big to be everywhere, so I primarily engage... Read more

  Posted on 26 May 2023 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Childhood History

  

  It looked just like I remembered it. Having recently read the account of a Hiroshima bomb survivor, I had a hankering to read it. John Hersey’s Hiroshima was... Read more

  Posted on 25 May 2023 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• More Water Monsters

  

  Monster from the Ocean Floor, one gets the sense, wouldn’t have merited a Wikipedia article were it not for the fact that it was the first film Roger Corman... Read more

  Posted on 24 May 2023 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Young Reading

  

  It was more the lede line than the story.  Melissa Kirsch’s “The books we read when we’re young help shape the adults we become in ways we don’t always grasp”... Read more

  Posted on 23 May 2023 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Many Days

  

  Science fiction. I used to consume it by the bookful, and even now I occasionally turn back to it. Having read Doris Piserchia’s A Billion Days of Earth, I do... Read more

  Posted on 22 May 2023 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Wicker Proofing

  

  I’m currently reading the first proofs of The Wicker Man (due out in August). While necessary, proofreading is a pain (and I work in publishing!). Read more

  Posted on 21 May 2023 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Entitled Titles

  

  Movies have a tremendous impact.  Nowhere is this more obvious than in movie titles moving into standard vocabulary.  “McGuffin” (which autocorrect thinks is... Read more

  Posted on 20 May 2023 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Drifting

  

  What really goes on in somebody else’s mind? At best we can guess, and when that person’s been dead for a long time that guessing involves some reasoned... Read more

  Posted on 19 May 2023 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Wrong Entity

  

  In one of those weird synchronicities the universe likes to play, the very next day after I watched The Entity (2015) and wrote a blog post on it, this happened. Read more

  Posted on 18 May 2023 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Entities

  

  When you’re a regular scholar, you take notes. I’m not a regular anything, I guess, and I’ve fallen out of the habit of noting who makes movie recommendations t... Read more

  Posted on 17 May 2023 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Reading Early America

  

  Reading about Washington Irving is reading about early America.  And reading about early America is to read about what’s happening in politics today. Read more

  Posted on 16 May 2023 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Lost at Sea

  

  Where do books come from?  It still comes as a surprise to many authors, but books tend to be shipped by, well, ship.  When publishers use overseas facilities,... Read more

  Posted on 15 May 2023 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Learning from Mother’s Day

  

  Looking back over the past year, I see that we’ve still got a lot of progress to make.  It’s only been about five millennia of “civilization,” but we still... Read more

  Posted on 14 May 2023 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY