Archive • The Occasional • Buttondown

“Seasons of Love”

In what has to have been the most jam-packed weekend of attractions we’ve heretofore experienced in our adult lives, I began last Saturday morning...

“Not if you don't want it to be…”

“You said that maybe it's over / Not if you don't want it to be / For once in your life, / here's your miracle / Stand up and fight(This is it) / Make no...

Bureaucracy Now!

For W.F.A. I went to get a Real ID a few days ago. Having reasonably concluded, for just under a decade, that the government’s “hard” deadline would almost...

“This Mess We’re In”(Part Two)

“The sunrise/ Over the river/ The freeway/ Reminding/ Of this mess we're in/ and/ (Oh) The city sun sets over me.” This Mess We’re In -P.J. Harvey We are...

“Today’s Thirsty Oligarch”

“But what a fool believes he sees/ No wise man has the power to reason away.” “What A Fool Believes” ——-Michael McDonald A couple of weeks ago, at forty-...

That which is awesome!

I was working on a more political essay (o tempora, o mores, o. m.g.),but it is the weekend (improbably my weekend, is now the weekend), and I am inclined to...

Subscriber Alert

As I migrated publishing sites, all paid subscriptions will now be annually renewed through Buttondown. To avoid double billing, I shut off billing through...

“Lotta Stories…”

A couple of years ago, my dear Aunt suggested I should compile some of my late mother’s expressions. As we are living through a moment as a Nation that is...

“On and on the rain will say/ How fragile we are how fragile we are/ How fragile we are/ how fragile we are” “Fragile” -Sting In “One Art,” Bishop, among the...

Hello from Buttondown…

Dear Readers, I have officially made the move to a new hosting platform. A new essay will be out soon! Cheers, Mark

Dear Readers, I am in the process of switching my email client. Substack is not a platform I want to be continue to be associated with in the present moment....

An Interview with Aunt Mary

February 23, 2025

“If you can only say one prayer, say thank you.”

“Like sands through the hourglass”

February 9, 2025

As the muskies began jostling their way past Federal building security last weekend, and began pillaging and futzing with the code underlying entire digital...

“This mess we’re in”

January 26, 2025

I was going to write something about the first few days of the new Republican administration, but the general pointless stupidity is already even worse than...

The Year of the Snake

January 19, 2025

As this new administration comes to power with the thinnest margins of Congressional control imaginable, the corporate overcorrection towards “anti-woke” and...

“Before the second show”

$ · January 14, 2025

Only a few days left until things are once again made great! I will throw sand, and whatever else might stick, in the gears of this oncoming train whenever...

“Waxing Gibbous”

December 24, 2024

“1992 is not a year on which I shall look back with undiluted pleasure. In the words of one of my more sympathetic correspondents, it has turned out to be an annus horribilis.”-Queen Elizabeth II

End of Year Playlist

$ · December 24, 2024

As I was flying a great deal the year before last, I started to find my wired earbuds indispensable, and while I do enjoy being in quiet public spaces, there...

Collage-a-Palooza

November 3, 2024

And now for something completely different! (I sought to manifest promising Selzer poll results with this one!) I had promised myself I would stop writing...

October 23, 2024

“But the world don't stop / Even when you're living in colour / No, the world don't stop / Time is only gonna pass you by / Now you're in real life” -Caroline Rose, “Jeanie Becomes a Mother”

Screaming Goat Summer

September 1, 2024

“ You who do not remember passage from the other world I tell you I could speak again: whatever returns from oblivion returns to find a voice:“ -Louise Glück, Wild Iris

To Carry Her Spark

“The power of reason/ And the flowers of deep feeling/ Seem to serve me/ only to deceive me.” “Song for Sharon,” Joni Mitchell

“Lost in Music”

“We're lost in music / Caught in a trap / No turnin' back / We're lost in music.” -Sister Sledge (In Memoriam for Meg)

In Absence and Presence

Mother’s Day has not been an easy day for me since my mother’s passing a decade ago. I have the good sense to generally avoid social media altogether on that...

Instagram Famous

“Fame (fame)puts you there where things are hollow/ Fame (fame)” “Fame” David Bowie

Three Saturdays ago was exactly one month since we opened, and there hadn’t been a night with under 250 reservations since that night. We were almost to six...

“Bring on the Changes”

“ It’s no pretending, no denying/ When you really feel the need/ Going to hang on and be strong/ Turn the tables, make the change.” “Change,” Incognito

January 26, 2024

“We are ready to despair too soon, we are ready to say, ‘What’s the good of doing anything?’ Hope is the virtue we should cultivate most in this present day and age.” Agatha Christie

Virtuosity and Scraps

January 15, 2024

“I don’t need most of the things some folks can’t do without.” Marcia Ball, “Love, Sweet Love”

The Cold and Quiet Months

December 27, 2023

“Thank you terror / Thank you disillusionment / Thank you frailty / Thank you consequence / Thank you / thank you silence.” (“Thank U,” Alanis Morissette)

A Holiday Subscription Offer

December 7, 2023

Like a fruit of the month subscription, but without all that pesky fruit clutter!

December 6, 2023

“Why love what you will lose? There is nothing else to love.” Louise Glück, The Triumph of Achilles

November 24, 2023

We added a new crostini to our repertoire for Thanksgiving, with pumpkin butter, blue cheese and fried sage leaf. Grateful to you readers!

Thanksgiving Appetizers & Drinks

November 16, 2023

The one summer I spent in Italy, attached to the Spoleto Music Festival, my second favorite thing about afternoon concert days, besides the concerts...

Cocktails At Home…

November 2, 2023

Dedicated to the Ridge Street Cocktail Trio…

Cooking & Confinement

October 13, 2023

Just a short couple of months into the Covid-19 lockdown, I was on the phone with my Aunt, and she said that she and my cousins had been on the phone...

“Goodbye, Ron”

October 3, 2023

(to quote Bret Stephens in The New York Times the morning after the first Republican debate of 2023)

At Season’s Beckon

September 28, 2023

Planning a seasonal change to a cocktail menu is very much like planning a Dinner Party: you consider the expected guests, the availability of seasonal...

The Laundering of American Fascism

Something’s afoot at the Gray Lady. Whether it’s the title of a recent opinion piece by Damon Linker entitled “My fellow liberals are exaggerating the...

An Essay for The Fourth of July

Fascism is ascendent in America, racism remains not woven into the cloth of this Country, but its very thread, and with the six “Conservative” justices...

“Let’s call this song exactly what it is”

An exploration of how we reached this dark precipice:

I was riding the Red Line North to Howard last month when a fairly average looking man absolutely lost it because another man was standing with his back to...

Pictures From A Pandemic

January 6, 2022

A few weeks ago, as Omicron reared it’s ugly spike, I decided to start going through the archive of photos I took during quarantine to see if I could...

November 20, 2021

I wrote this poem this afternoon. I needed to do something constructive with my swelling anger: Red Line Poem As the train moves, the orange mesh along the...

September 16, 2021

As my Father has sagely observed, “no one asks to be born.” Whatever ontological understanding you apply to the passage from “the forceps to the stone,”...

August 11, 2021

(“Delta Variant Blues” was already taken…)

Comes with a poem!

Creativity and Covid

Creativity and Covid When the first fifteen cases of Covid-19 had just started to metatastize into the first wave of a plague, I was on the bus on the phone...

A year ago, with a madman in the Whitehouse, and no vaccines in sight, I wrote this poem. I share as we re-emerge into the world again…. 4th I had a dream in...