If they’d all lived long enough to see it.
October 1 brings the release of the film The Many Saints of Newark, a prequel to David Chase’s masterpiece HBO series, and whatever one’s thoughts on the movie — early reviews have been mixed-to-positive — it is, regardless of its quality, a terrific excuse to revisit the series. The Sopranos retains its almost primal power today, 14 (!) years after it ended its run and eight-and-a-half years after the death of James Gandolfini, its central figure and otherworldly charismatic and brooding star. I’ve been rewatching the series leading up to the release of the film — while reading along with…
Kids can have part of their childhoods back.
I’ve spent a good percentage of this pandemic wondering how we would all look back on it someday, when we’ve survived it, if we’ve survived. What will be the habits that last? How will we commemorate it? What are the artifacts that remind us of it? What images will conjure up this unprecedented time in our lives, and in American history?
On that last front, I often think of last Halloween. Last Halloween, we were of course still right in the thick of the pandemic: Before vaccines, and also before the huge Christmas/New Years surge. People were still being extremely…
Internet Nostalgia
You can’t have one freaking second to yourself, even as a teenager.
Welcome to part 28 of our Internet Nostalgia series, which looks back at phenomena that captured the internet’s imagination and attention for a fleeting moment and then vanished as everyone moved on to something else. This series looks back at those olden times and what they told us about the internet and ourselves. If you have a suggested topic, email me at williamfleitch@yahoo.com. Last week: Slender Man. This week: Alex from Target.
When: November 2014
The Story: I have to confess something to you: Until I started looking into possible topics for Internet Nostalgia this week, I had never heard…
Refresh feed … refresh feed …
There is a lot of news going on in the world right now, as there always is, and how much it affects your life in many ways depends on how closely you decide to pay attention to it. California recall, the Texas abortion law, Afghanistan … it can feel overwhelming, and it’s a downright slow news drip compared to what we went through most of 2020.
But for most of the parents I know, there is only one news story that they care about, that they are focused in on with laser-like fashion. All other stories fade away, and that’s…
Is such a commemorative date possible?
With the possible exception of one of the former Presidents broadcasting a horrifying pay-per-view telecast of elder abuse, the remembrances of the 20th anniversary of September 11 this past weekend were tasteful, restrained and moving. (No Fleshlight Tweets this year.) It was a reminder of not only how horrible they would have been had the November election turned out differently than it did but also of how much value there is in having such memorials and anniversaries. …
Internet Nostalgia
Careful what you make when bored online …
Welcome to part 27 of our Internet Nostalgia series, which looks back at phenomena that captured the internet’s imagination and attention for a fleeting moment and then vanished as everyone moved on to something else. This series looks back at those olden times and what they told us about the internet and ourselves. If you have a suggested topic, email me at williamfleitch@yahoo.com. Last week: Milkshake Duck. This week: Slender Man.
When: 2009.
The Story: Back in 2009, one of the most popular, creative forums online was Something Awful, a forum for just about every wild, often-charming Internet denizen who…
The best books (and there are some great ones) about September 11.
One of the things I’ve discovered about myself, as I slowly morph into a middle-aged white man, is that my reading habits are starting to very closely resemble those of a middle-aged white man. There’s only one difference: Rather than reading books about World War II, I read books about September 11.
There are some truly great ones, and so many that I legitimately have a shelf of books that are just 9/11 books. The major events of September 11 took place over the span of just one morning — you can essentially break the morning up into five acts…
They happened to be filming the exact moment the first plane hit the World Trade Center
Saturday is the 20th anniversary of September 11, something I cannot believe to be true. I lived in New York City on September 11, 2001, a 24-year-old kid who was barely employed and didn’t have the foggiest idea of what he was doing with his life. I was working as a receptionist at Mount Sinai hospital on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, and after the attack, the hospital mobilized for an expected influx of victims needing medical attention, but once everyone realized there weren’t any — that, on the whole, you either made it out, or you didn’t —…
Internet Nostalgia
It’s not even real. But it’s immortal.
Welcome to part 26 of our Internet Nostalgia series, which looks back at phenomena that captured the internet’s imagination and attention for a fleeting moment and then vanished as everyone moved on to something else. This series looks back at those olden times and what they told us about the internet and ourselves. If you have a suggested topic, email me at williamfleitch@yahoo.com. Last week: David After Dentist. This week: Milkshake Duck.
When: June 12, 2016 until … forever.
The Story: Ben Ward is an Australian cartoonist who has a very funny Twitter account at @pixelatedboat. He had noticed an…
You can throw a lot at them, and they keep bouncing back.
This week, for the first time of the pandemic, Covid-19 made its way into my child’s classroom.
Both of my sons, a fourth grader and a second grader, have been back in school for nearly a month now — we start very early down in Georgia — and it has been going as smoothly as you could reasonably expect, which is to say, not all that smoothly. Our elementary school has a mask mandate, which helps a ton, and is run by measured, careful and pragmatic administrators who are taking every available precaution but also still understand just how vital…
