SANGRIA, SHALL WE DANCE?

Recently, I discovered a YouTube video by Camila Cabello and Pharrell Williams entitled “Sangria Wine” and the associated Sangria Dance Challenge. It was released in 2018. The Hall and Oates’ song “Out of Touch” must be about me. This is scary. Sangria has been around for a long, long time. It dates back to when the... Read More

The Wine Spot

June 12, 2025

Harbor

Was it Mystic where we met? So near the sea, ours to sail where dreams could take us. Books I want to write began there, where I felt love as forceful as waves that lured me to see chapters writing themselves penned when your eyes culled words like magic.

Poet's Corner

June 10, 2025

Night of the Whip-poor-will

Since summer arrives this month, I am writing about something which happened one summer when I was around 6 or 7 years old (1957 or 1958). Wikipedia (before that, Compton’s, World Book, Britannica, etc.), says that the whip-poor-will is a nocturnal country bird which lives in a dry-deciduous or evergreen-deciduous forest that is without underbrush... Read More

Essays

June 3, 2025

Brothers in Clay: How Destruction Became Creation for BC Clay Art

In the hills of North Carolina, where the earth provides a natural palette of various clays, brothers Brad and Bryan Caviness have turned disaster into artistic innovation. Their studio, BC Clay Art, specializes in “worlds in jars”—broken pottery vessels revealing intricate miniature scenes of ancient historical sites within their fractured walls. Their journey began with... Read More

Cover Features

June 2, 2025

Movies You Missed From 20 Years Ago: Batman Begins

Released June 15, 2005 Streaming on Max & Netflix, For rent/purchase on all major platforms. Genre: Action Epic, Epic, Superhero, Action, Crime PG-13: Intense action violence, disturbing images and some thematic elements 2h 20m After 1997’s Batman & Robin, it would be 8 more years before we got to see a new actor take on... Read More

Movies You Missed

May 17, 2025

A FEW GUIDELINES I SHOULD HAVE FOLLOWED

Today more and more wines are bottled with metal screw caps. I understand it is more economical, and it reduces spoilage. If, however, you are opening a bottle of wine with a cork, consider these signs as a possible warning of spoiled wine, as mentioned in a Vinovest blog; A bulging cork may indicate heat... Read More

The Wine Spot

May 14, 2025

Detectives

Unpaid, undaunted children searched hallways and rooms. Looked under rugs and bedspreads, pillows and cushions and legs of suspicious chairs. Their search lasted hours and more, until each sleuth knew for sure their hunt had revealed their pet dog had gone outdoors.

Poet's Corner

May 12, 2025

In the Bosom

The subject of this story is not what you may think from the title. Catchy titles draw the reader in. So, I hope you are suitably drawn. I sometimes source my collection of hats, helmets, coats and jackets of different time periods of the twentieth century to affect a certain “look from history” when venturing... Read More

Essays

May 8, 2025

Movies You Missed from 20 years ago: House of Wax

House of Wax (6/10 Rating) Released May 6, 2005 For rent/purchase on all major platforms. Genre: Slasher Horror, Teen Horror, Horror, Thriller R: Horror violence, some sexual content, and language 1h 53m One of my favorite movie discoveries of recent years is Tourist Trap (1979). It certainly has its flaws, but it is genuinely... Read More

Movies You Missed

May 6, 2025

Sammy the Whammy (A Mamie and Solly Story)

(Scene: Mamie is driving the three of them home from an appointment. Solly seems abstracted.) Solly: Are you out of blinker fluid, Mamie? Mamie: What blinker fluid? A turn signal doesn’t need fluid. S: Then why isn’t it working? M: The turn signal? S: You’re in the left lane. No blinker. M (flips blinker down):... Read More

Fiction