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The return of CRT TVs

Cathode-ray televisions — the thick, “fat” CRT TVs of my youth — were dead. You couldn’t find them in secondhand shops, because who would buy one?They were sidewalk refuse, chunky e-waste, destined for the dump. In an era of economic dissatisfaction, the reduced cost of slim, high-resolution flat-screen TVs has been a major if often derided benefit. Populists often sneer at globalism — “Who cares that you can get great, cheap TVs when housing is more expensive and there are few jobs?” But even they would still use a stunning 4K — or 8K or 16 K even — OLED TV over the fat screens of the good ol’ days. And yet, for enthusiasts of retro video games and other esoteric media hobbies, what others see as trash is their treasure.

Teresa Mull

Eighty years on, Smokey Bear has aged like a fine oak

On a muggy mid-morning in early August, I arrived at the Berks County (Pennsylvania) Heritage Center to celebrate the birthday of a bear. This was not your run-of-the-mill bear birthday party, mind you. This one was honoring a bruin who wears pants and no shirt (unlike his edgier cousin, Winnie-the-Pooh, who forgoes britches), a campaign hat just like the park rangers’ and who, at age eighty, shows no signs of slowing down. Yes, Smokey Bear became an octogenarian this year, and a billboard in my central Pennsylvania town informed me of his milestone. Not that we have many wildfires in the damp northeast, but Smokey’s message transcends space and time (and US Forest Service budgets, apparently).

Chilton Williamson, Jr.

The Basement Government

The last presidential election was one in which the term “popular front” took on new meaning owing to the Covid pandemic and a political contest that would have proved anomalous at any point — given the state of an opposition party badly compromised by the aging, uninspired, uninspiring and unpopular political hacks at the top of the party hierarchy and its radicalization over the previous four years by “Trump Derangement Syndrome.” Seeking a “moderate” Democrat with a better chance at defeating the incumbent Republican president, the Democratic Party settled finally and with loud cries of relief on the most confirmed hack in its roster of ranking hacks — one whom, moreover, even the rank and file understood to be mentally and physically infirm — as its safest bet.

Bill Kauffman

A matter of presidents

Virginia spawned four of the first five US presidents. Between Reconstruction and the roaring twenties, Ohio’s executive fecundity earned it the sobriquet “Cradle of Presidents.” But the next time fate, or providence, guides you to western New York, the friendly folks at the Buffalo Presidential Center will set you straight on the most president-haunted city this side of Washington, DC.

Cosmo Landesman

The thrill of being recognized

I had just left Tate Britain and was heading toward the Pimlico underground station when I noticed an attractive woman coming toward me. I smiled at her and she smiled at me. And then she stopped and said, “Are you Cosmo Landesman?” There are writers and journalists who get public recognition like this all the time. Alas, I’m not one. But I was married to one of them, and it’s a real drag having a famous partner. You have to stand there at the supermarket checkout line with a big fake smile on your face as your loved one laps up all the love from some adoring fan. Imagine how poor John Gregory Dunne must have felt being married to the very recognizable Joan Didion. Having a famous writer friend is also a bummer. Socially, you will always be in their shadow.

Bill McMorris

My parental lobotomy

On August 25, 1953, neurosurgeon William Beecher Scoville drilled holes into the skull of a young epileptic named Henry Gustav Molaison and vacuumed out part of his brain. In August 2023, Mrs. McMorris watched her husband turn his hat backward while teaching her daughters to fish — and then she drank wine. Modern man tends to think “botched lobectomy” is redundant, though the frequency and severity of Molaison’s seizures receded. Picture the neurosurgeon, contemplating the forthcoming medical association medals, the ceremonies he would keynote as the Jonas Salk of drilling holes into skulls, the Clara Barton of vacuuming-out brain tissue. Mr. Molaison left the operating room able to recount his childhood crush but could not tell you whether his parents were alive.

Life