Dave's Fiction Warehouse

In which I bloviate about books, TV, movies, politics and other stuff.

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We don’t need no stinking followers

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Should we care that Elon Musk is about to acquire Twitter? Not really. Remember that Twitter, like Matt Gaetz and Marge Greene, is just a tool. Like any tool, it can be used for evil or good. Well, mostly evil in the case of Matt-n-Marge, but you see what I mean. I’m not going to ditch Twitter just because the world’s richest (for now) man and the […]

This could be
the last time

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You always know when you’re experiencing something for the first time. But you can never be sure when it’s the last. After a certain age, most things take on an elegiac cast. Only later can you look back and recognize a final moment for what it was. And you always wish you’d paid more attention.  The older I get, the more I wonder about those last times, […]

February fugue

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In Barry Levinson’s 1990 movie “Avalon,” there’s a scene where the aging patriarch sits down in his easy chair in front of the TV. The camera remains stationary, but there’s a slow cross-fade, and at the end of it we see that several years have passed. The old guy is in the same chair, still watching TV, but he has gotten much older.  He hasn’t moved, but […]

None the wiser

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Hard times need good songs. The Great War had “Over There.” The Great Depression had “Brother Can You Spare a Dime.” World War II had “We’ll Meet Again.” And now, with Covid-19 roaring back, it feels like we need an anthem too. I nominate “Wise Up,” by Aimee Mann. The song came back to me yesterday, just after I canceled the family vacation rental I’d booked for […]

Two steps back

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For us, the pandemic started March 13. We went out for pizza. No masks then, but no hugs or handshakes either. Seated well apart. Talking about the coronavirus, I opined that we might get together again in a month or so, when things eased up. I thought we’d have a clearer picture on how long this thing might last. More than three months later, a clearer picture […]

Still afloat

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We’re about a month into this now. Amazing what you get used to. Amazing what’s changed and what hasn’t. We’re still eating pretty well. (Thanks, WalMart Pickup!) We still go for walks and enjoy the good weather. We got through the wretched Tiger King, but still have a long queue of books and Netflix recommendations from equally bored friends and family. We’ve still got Zoom, with all […]

Silent spring

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There’s no need to read any of this. We’re all going through the same thing, all reading the same stuff on the internet. I can’t offer any fresh insights on American life in the time of Covid-19. I’m just writing here because I’ve finished the new season of “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and the last murder mystery I had on the Kindle (The Perfect Couple, three stars). So. […]