Posts by Nathan Graziano
A blood moon hung in the night sky above Busch Memorial Stadium in St. Louis, Mo., on October 27, 2004, a night that ended 86 years of abject misery for the Boston Red Sox and their devoted fanbase.
As a boy, I watched Desmond Davis’ 1981 film “Clash of the Titans” on HBO, long before I read any Greek mythology. The film lingered with me, not as a budding mythology buff, but as a highly anxious mortal, terrified by the world.
It’s easy to succumb to skepticism when it comes to believing in the paranormal and spiritual realms. If something is not in front of you and as solid as an American dollar bill—which is still largely imaginary, however—what evidence do you have to prove its existence?
Gyllenhaal shows off all of his Academy Award-nominated chops as the soft-spoken Elwood Dalton. Notice that the character does not have the same given name as Swayze’s character in the original film. Gyllanhaal’s Elwood Dalton is not, in fact, the same character as Swayze’s James Dalton, although they’re both referred to simply as “Dalton.”
However, as I’ve gotten older, some of the joy of celebrating my dramatic comeback has subsided and—aside from a few rites of passages at the end of another decade of spinning around the sun—my birthday now goes largely unnoticed. This needs to change. And not just for me. For everyone.
While I am far past the age where I’ll be zooming downtown at 6 a.m. to open the bars with the hosts of a radio morning show— “That is no country for old men”— I still like to celebrate the day with a few beers, a boiled dinner and a Pogues playlist.
During the last week of February, I had a weeklong winter break from my job teaching at a public high school. Many of my friends and colleagues in education use the break as an opportunity to vacation with their families—whether it’s a day trip skiing in the White Mountains, or hopping a last-minute flight to Hawaii.[1]
Recently, I found myself—perhaps serendipitously—interviewing Jeremiah Walton, a Bedford native and a co-founder the “Bards on the Rocks” reading series, and his enthusiasm for poetry and performance – and the blending of both – helped me shake off some of my middle-aged cynicism.
I teach in a public school so I can’t possibly write a column about school vouchers with a modicum of diplomacy. This screed will invariably devolve into another hot-shot of liberal vitriol, right? Wrong.
My allegiance to the Red Sox vastly contributed to my developing a Chicken Little Syndrome—“The sky is falling”—while creating a seemingly endless well of negativity.