Weird History

Let me make it clear from the beginning that Desert Oracle is very different from the books I generally share with you here on the Margins. It is not a work of narrative history, but history is woven throughout it. Weird history, true, but history nonetheless. Desert Oracle is the outgrowth of a more-or-less quarterly…

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In Which I Read the 1932 Sports Pages

Anyone who knows me In Real Life knows that I am not much of a sports fan. If there had been a “least likely to read the sports pages” category in my high school yearbook, I would have won it hands down. Left to my own devices, I might not have turned to the Chicago…

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Damon Runyon is Not Ring Lardner

This post has its roots in one simple fact: Damon Runyon is not Ring Lardner. Or perhaps I should say that Ring Lardner is not Damon Runyon. As I mentioned in my last blog post: I mixed the two men up in my head. My fingers typed Ring Lardner in my original notes but my…

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