The Garden of Memory

I haven’t been public about this until now, but apparently I’m going to be on a documentary show that’s going to air on the History Channel.

This detailed photo—another chromolithograph, like others I’ve featured in this series, and also especially in the Historic Photo series—shows the posh first-class gentlemen’s smoking room aboard the pioneering German ocean liner Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse.

I’m two days late posting this, but, as is customary, here is a companion article to my latest YouTube video release, Part II, the final part, of the series “Star Trek and the Vietnam War.”

One hundred and twelve years ago this week, on August 25, 1914, an unspeakable tragedy in world culture occurred in a small corner of Belgium.

It’s release time again; if I count correctly it was 53 days between the release of the last video on my YouTube channel, “San Francisco That Survived,” and the one that went up yesterday (August 21, 2026), “Star Trek and the Vietnam War, Part I.”

I am a historian, and this is primarily a history blog.

One hundred and forty-six ago today, on August 14, 1880, a dedication ceremony was held to celebrate the completion of Cologne Cathedral in Cologne, Germany.

This wonderful painting instantly captures the romance and history of a vanished era.

My science fiction novel, Faraway Star, came out June 11, a little less than two months ago.

This week saw an odd anniversary for me, one that completely passed me by until I suddenly realized it a few days ago.

I’m a cinephile, as you probably know from the many articles I’ve done on old movies, but I very rarely keep up with “current” films, in the sense of newly-released pictures that are presently in cinemas or hot on streaming.

This is a strange interior space, one that instantly invokes modernism but also has a curiously retro vibe to it.

Here is another of my deep dives on questionable movies and TV.

I have never done a “rerun” on this blog before.

So here’s an item that falls in the category of something I never thought I would feel bad about, but do: the summer is about half over and I haven’t been troubled at all by insects.