One square inch of silence still exists
Outside, a young person drives by with his car stereo booming a relentless ear-shattering boom, boom, boom. You wonder how long he himself will be able to…
Category: General Interest
These sounds have vanished
If you are of a certain age, you can close your eyes and hear the sound of a rotary dial phone. It’s one of the common sounds of the beginning of the 20th…
The dragon rules the zodiac
The Chinese zodiac proclaims 2024 to be one of the most prosperous and its all due to one mystical creature with the head of a camel, the neck of a snake…
Treasure hunt story lives on long after author’s death
The man who started it all is dead. Byron Preiss died in 2005, two decades after he engineered a multi-city treasure hunt with puzzles provided in his…
There’s no place like probation: An aging mobster’s last big score
Terry Jon Martin might be one of the only people in America who never saw The Wizard of Oz when he was a kid. If he had, then he might have understood…
The great cursive comeback
Generation after generation, young school-aged children labored over cursive handwriting workbooks, tracing over unfamiliar letters and joining those…
Why do the Japanese love Fiddler?
The original Broadway run of the stage musical Fiddler on the Roof was a bit of an unlikely smash, with investors and media figures skeptical that…
Golf balls shall soar no more
Sometimes, there really can be too much of a good thing. At least, that’s what the governing bodies of golf have concluded. In late 2023, the two bodies…
Towns you can buy today
Maybe you have plenty of money to burn and a fondness for risky (and unique) investments. Perhaps you can’t resist tradition and history. Or maybe you…
Some self-checkout lanes are getting the pink slip
Is self-checkout checking out? Self-checkout has enjoyed years of steady adoption. One study that examined 4.5 billion transactions found that…