RattleBag and Rhubarb

The Silence of the Associations

It has been nearly four months since the publication of the Independent Review of gender identity services for children and…

6 months ago

Six Word Story

A legend makes a good story. To win a ten-dollar bet, Hemingway wrote a six-word story. “For sale: baby shoes.…

6 months ago

The Hard Way

I received a book in the mail this week. Nothing unusual about that even though I do try to buy…

7 months ago

The Cats

Dilys was the first, circa 1980. Unwanted or abandoned, I can't remember how she came our way but she left…

7 months ago

It’s Holy Month

I put this image together in honor of the Holy Month that's now upon us.  Given the proliferation of days,…

8 months ago

Columbia, Cats, Cass, and a Spring Stickybeak

Before decamping to Brooklyn for the month I saw this on a utility box on Riverside Drive. Someone had gone…

9 months ago

The Affair of the Chocolate Teapot

Midge Hazelbrow, the indomitable co-head of Wayward St. Etheldreda's Academy, took herself for a brisk constitutional down Riverside Drive to…

10 months ago

Best Practices, Reading Wars, and Eruption at Wayward

Before the eruption, it was a typical senior leadership meeting at Wayward. Head of School, Tim Endibel, was talking. On…

11 months ago

Words Matter

When I taught fourth and fifth grade at a school that didn't assign grades, the topic occasionally came up among…

11 months ago

The Culinary Capers and Comic Catastrophes of Gerald Samper

It was the Gert Loveday review of Rancid Pansies (it’s an anagram) that set me off to read James Hamilton-Paterson’s…

11 months ago