“Yup,” my friend said, “you’re definitely old.” I’d just delivered a scathing review of a new social networking product he’d asked me to look at. “Why would I write down everything that happened in my day and then...

“Here’s an interesting one,” Shana said, reading aloud from the classifieds. “Absolute Bankruptcy Auction. West Shore Oil Co. liquidation.” “West Shore Oil?” I said. “As in, the place that delivers our fuel?”...

“Mattie-boy,” my friend David whispered, “someone’s stealing your loader!” It was just after six on a cold November morning. The house was as dark as the moonless, mud-torn yard. The Ladies were asleep; thus the whispering. I was asleep,...

“I’ve got something called a ‘Factor 2’ genetic mutation,” my cousin said, “and I think you ought to get yourself tested.” This, on the heels of telling me he was convalescing from a massive pulmonary embolism. The news was a...

Last week, in the runup to Thanksgiving, I undertook an evil little job: insulating between the basement joists with fiberglass batts. No doubt many of you have been there, too, especially in this era of expensive oil. You buy those pressurized packages of batts that...

“How was Metropolis?” Shana asked. I’d finally gotten around to watching the new, restored version of Fritz Lang’s classic 1927 silent film, which she’d spotted on the cable schedule and kindly recorded for me. “Crazypants,” I...

When I was a young man, I loved Moliere’s Misanthrope. Alceste, the hero – or rather, comic antihero – of the play, fed up with the artifice and false manners of  17th century Paris, resolves to tell everyone exactly what he thinks, whether or...

It’s rare, but every now and then network television declares a holiday from its typical dumbed-down fare and gives viewers what they didn’t even realize they craved: a showcase of Western civilization. Right now, there’s a prime-time show on NBC...

This week, all over Perry County, cars and trucks laden with wrapped gifts and pots of food will be delivering their passengers to two great holiday gift traditions: the exchange of presents and the potluck supper. In the run-up to the holidays, as empty boxes from...

I started this year of columns with a piece on Mark Twain. It’s fitting that the year should end with another dip into his bottomless well. One of the landmark literary events of 2010 was the publication of the first volume of Twain’s autobiography, which...

“Look at your cool shadow!” Shana said, as our daughter teetered back and forth in the slanting afternoon sun. It was a cool shadow: a figure atop a single wheel, like one of those old typewriter erasers with a bristle brush on one end and a little rubber...

I was twelve; I was on a field trip; I was climbing through the claustrophobic, pulse-pounding chambers of a two-story human heart. Sound familiar? I grew up in the city of the Smithsonians, but the best time I had in a museum when I was a kid was at the Franklin...

One of the great pleasures of writing this column is getting emails from the residents of our fair county. I love to read your thoughts and ideas, which reach me at [email protected]. I maintain a website for my other writing, www.matthewolshan.com, which...

Warning: the following column may cause itching of the scalp. Do not panic. This condition is known as “formication,” the feeling that your skin is covered with creepy-crawlies. It’s perfectly normal and can be treated by gentle scratching, or, if...

It’s not everybody’s cup of tea, but we happen to like living next to a cemetery. We don’t find it creepy or ghoulish to live in the shadow of grave markers. Death is a fact of life. Human beings have the merciful capacity to forget about their...