The Donald and Il Duce: A more than passing resemblance? Hearing the name of Donald Trump, the blowhard candidate, makes me think of a Yiddish word, trumpenik, that my grandfather would use from time to time about someone he regarded as a lowlife. I looked it up online and found this (http://bit.ly/1pvJWXB) in connection with […]
Clients often tell me I’ve captured their voice in, for example, ghost-written speeches or newspaper opinion pieces (op-eds). The funny thing is that I have no idea how to capture someone’s voice and never spend time or effort trying to do so. What I do instead is simply write as clearly, concisely and engagingly as […]
Bank Bridge over the Griboyedov Canal, one of many canals in St. Petersburg (formerly Leningrad), sometimes called “the Venice of the North.” As a young Foreign Service officer, I arrived in Leningrad in early July 1976 to begin a two-year assignment at the U.S. consulate-general in that city, the second-largest in the USSR. I flew […]
The following incident took place one evening in 1972 in our apartment, when I was working in my first Foreign Service post at the U.S. embassy in Brasilia. My wife (clarification: my “starter wife,” as a funny friend likes to call a first spouse to whom one is no longer wed) had gone to bed […]
Lyrics that I dreamed up for the benefit of our kids at Christmastime 1977 when I was working at the U.S. consulate-general in Leningrad, USSR. We had just washed our (very dirty) blue Saab. These lyrics were originally published in the Neva Neva News, the occasional newsletter of the consulate-general staff. Sung to the tune of the […]
https://pen4rent.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/saab-900-2002.jpg7681024Howard Danielhttps://pen4rent.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/logo.pngHoward Daniel2015-12-23 18:29:122020-04-05 22:10:03What Car Is This?
‘Trumpenik’
/in Language, Recollections, ThoughtsThe Donald and Il Duce: A more than passing resemblance? Hearing the name of Donald Trump, the blowhard candidate, makes me think of a Yiddish word, trumpenik, that my grandfather would use from time to time about someone he regarded as a lowlife. I looked it up online and found this (http://bit.ly/1pvJWXB) in connection with […]
Capturing a Voice
/in Writing & editingClients often tell me I’ve captured their voice in, for example, ghost-written speeches or newspaper opinion pieces (op-eds). The funny thing is that I have no idea how to capture someone’s voice and never spend time or effort trying to do so. What I do instead is simply write as clearly, concisely and engagingly as […]
Surreal Welcome to Leningrad
/in History, Places I've lived, Recollections, Russia-USSRBank Bridge over the Griboyedov Canal, one of many canals in St. Petersburg (formerly Leningrad), sometimes called “the Venice of the North.” As a young Foreign Service officer, I arrived in Leningrad in early July 1976 to begin a two-year assignment at the U.S. consulate-general in that city, the second-largest in the USSR. I flew […]
The Fly
/in Brazil, Family, Humor, Places I've lived, RecollectionsThe following incident took place one evening in 1972 in our apartment, when I was working in my first Foreign Service post at the U.S. embassy in Brasilia. My wife (clarification: my “starter wife,” as a funny friend likes to call a first spouse to whom one is no longer wed) had gone to bed […]
What Car Is This?
/in Holidays, Humor, Places I've lived, Recollections, Russia-USSR, Writing & editingLyrics that I dreamed up for the benefit of our kids at Christmastime 1977 when I was working at the U.S. consulate-general in Leningrad, USSR. We had just washed our (very dirty) blue Saab. These lyrics were originally published in the Neva Neva News, the occasional newsletter of the consulate-general staff. Sung to the tune of the […]