A Long Time Ago in a Cutting room Far, Far Away. . . . by Paul Hirsch (Movie Industry Memoir, 2020). This one is a little different from what I usually read/review for this blog. You probably have never heard of Paul Hirsch; I hadn’t before reading this book. But he has spent the last […]
Read more "BOOK REVIEW: A Long Time Ago, in a Cutting room Far, Far Away. . . . ."After taking a couple months off for improvements, Windber, Pennsylvania’s haunted hotel, The Grand Midway, has re-launched its weekly coffeehouse. The re-opening was last night, Saturday, September 7. We’ll be open each Saturday evening, 6 till (at least) 10 PM through Halloween. And since this coming Friday is the 13th, we’ll be doing a bonus […]
Read more "REVIVING COFFEEHOUSE NIGHTS: 7 September 2019"At the risk of sounding like the proverbial broken record (and a whiny complaining one at that), the Thursday June 20 coffeehouse proved a less than satisfying effort. Again we were plagued by bad weather (thunder, lightning, a couple downpours of pelting rain) and low attendance. I’m sure the opening night of the region’s hugely […]
Read more "COFFEEHOUSE NIGHTS: 20 June 2019"This week’s coffeehouse coincided with the official opening of Windber’s annual Miner’s Memorial Days, which honors local history and always climaxes on Father’s Day (which is this Sunday). I approached the evening in a very good mood. Having one of my short stories being published (in a hardcover anthology of SF/F for kids) and a […]
Read more "Windber Coffeehouse Nights: 13 June 2019"The second weekly coffeehouse of the season at Windber’s Grand Midway Hotel was in many ways a disappointment. Attendance was well off from the previous week’s promising beginning, despite the presence of a handful of stalwart regulars. Yet there were some positive aspects worthy of mention. In honor of this week’s 50th anniversary of the […]
Read more "Windber Coffeehouse Nights: June 6, 2019"First an apology: I fully intended to post this recap of last Thursday’s coffeehouse within 24 hours of the event. Other factors intervened, some writer related (like the June 1st deadline on my bimonthly column for the PennWriter newsletter) or other more general life issues. Anyway……. The first coffeehouse of 2019 was, on the whole, […]
Read more "Windber Coffeehouse Nights: 30 May 2019"We had quite a good and varied crowd at last night’s coffeehouse at Windber’s Grand Midway Hotel. Plenty of regulars, a few past guests we hadn’t seen in a while and a sprinkling of total newcomers. It being the last one before Halloween night, I again donned the creepy Bell Boy costume from last weekend’s […]
Read more "Windber Coffeehouse Nights: 25 October 2018"Manderley Forever: A Biography of Daphne Du Maurier by Tatiana De Rosnay (Biography, 2017). The title here is, of course, a reference to the fictional mansion in Du Maurier’s best known novel, Rebecca. As the author makes clear, real life homes fascinated and repeatedly inspired Du Maurier. In particular, ones she lived in (as well as […]
Read more "REVIEWED: Manderley Forever"The night’s 3rd DVD film was the 2nd Men in Black feature: Not quite up to the original, but still much fun. A couple folks debating favorite brands of rifles and cars. Later: some impassioned dialogue about people snooping on others on Facebook, etc. And as a final change of pace, the nights’ 4th movie […]
Read more "17 November at the Grand Midway, Part 2"The Grand Midway Hotel’s Shangri-La Coffee Lounge reopens (owner Blair Murphy took a break while he and his Lovely Significant Other–hi, Camille!–was having their Baby Daughter, Luna). Just getting back in the swing of things, Blair forgot to put out most of the creamers and the early attendees were too polite (wimpy?) to ask about […]
Read more "September 8 at the Grand Midway"