RayDorl.com

Author: Ray Dorl

  • Dorl Family Trip To Iceland, Part 4 (of 9)

    Dorl Family Trip To Iceland, Part 4 (of 9)

    Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

    I woke at 7 AM that morning. Billy had taken the “center position” between me and Kaye and had clung to me all night, curling his small body next to mine. I was crowded and wary of rolling over onto him, so it wasn’t the greatest night’s sleep; but still, he’s such a loving boy I couldn’t fault him that much. 

    It had snowed overnight and now a fresh layer of snow covered the dangerous ice I’d almost fallen on the night before; ironically the new layer of snow made my path a little less treacherous, as the snow had sufficient “give” to create additional traction as I crossed the lot

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  • Dorl Family Trip to Iceland – Part 3 (of 9)

    Dorl Family Trip to Iceland – Part 3 (of 9)

    Part 1 Part 2

    When we woke the next morning at 8:30, there was about an inch of a fresh snow on the ground, and the snow kept coming down hard as Billy and I made our way to the hostel associated with the campground for their “buffet.” After our “dinner” of crackers and cookies, my stomach rumbled at the prospect of eggs, sausage, French toast, home fries, etc. 

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  • Dorl Family Trip to Iceland (Part 2 of 9)

    Dorl Family Trip to Iceland (Part 2 of 9)

    Part 1

    Our flight took off on Friday, March 20, at around 8:45 and was about a 6-hour flight, meaning we’d be landing at 2:45 AM our time (but Iceland is about 5 hours ahead in time zone, so we landed at 7 AM local time). Gwen mostly slept beside me; I probably caught a couple hours of sleep before landing in… 

    ICELAND! The descent was instructive as to the nature of the country; out of my window, I saw a snowy, mountainous landscape with a few sparse, thin ribbons of light—highways cutting through the darkened landscape—and a smattering of modest, barracks-like buildings. I thought what a contrast this approach was, with its scant evidence of human habitation, with the vast orange grid that one sees on the descent into the Chicagoland area.

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  • Dorl Family Trip to Iceland (Part 1 of 9)

    Dorl Family Trip to Iceland (Part 1 of 9)

    For Spring Break 2026 (March 20-28, 2026), the Dorl family headed to Iceland and went sightseeing in a camper van. Our family, from oldest to youngest, consisted of: 

    • Ray, age 50: working as a lawyer, interests at the time included lifting weights (a passion that he would inflict on his family during the trip) and learning guitar (ditto, wielding a travel guitar that was a persistent pain in the ass to stow away in the camper van).
    • Kaye, age 46: working as an in-house lawyer for a medical technology company; interests at the time included yoga (which she really didn’t get to do during the trip) and learning bass guitar.
    • Gwen, age 9: in fourth grade; outside activities included dance team and playing piano. The owner of a vast array of stuffed animals (or “stuffies,” as we term them), she traveled with a pretty light complement of stuffies by her standards: just her shiny blue and silver Narwhal named Bo-boo, her stuffed bunny named Jelly, and a stuffed polar bear named Peanut Butter. She also traveled with her beloved “monkey blanky,” a small blanket decorated with monkeys that she had owned since she was an infant. 
    • Billy, age 7: in first grade, outside activities included tae kwon do, basketball, and playing guitar. A precocious lad, he had a vast trove of knowledge concerning the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and had recently become an afficionado of caramel lattes (decaffeinated only, at his parents’ insistence) and clamored after his favorite beverage at every stop. 
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  • How The Fuck Did We Get To This Point? Reading Robert Paxton’s “The Anatomy of Fascism” in the Age of Trump

    How The Fuck Did We Get To This Point? Reading Robert Paxton’s “The Anatomy of Fascism” in the Age of Trump

    How the fuck did we get here? I’m sure I’m not the only one who has thought this as masked fascist goons terrorize my city, tear gassing Halloween parades and schoolyards, crashing their cars into civilians then dragging them out of their cars to take them God knows where, and literally “disappearing” people from their families and lawyers. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg, as an unaccountable executive arrogates more and more power from supposedly coequal branches of government, bombs or intimidates more or less every other country in the Americas, sinks our economy with misguided notions of autarky, and corruptly pockets bribes, all while a steady 37% of the country continues to accept that he will “Make America Great Again.”

    In hopes of understanding how exactly in the fuck we got here, I turned to Robert Paxton’s “The Anatomy of Fascism.” Before publishing this book in 2004, Paxton wrote a well-regarded history of Vichy France that bucked the conventional wisdom that it was a reluctant hostage and instead portrayed it as an enthusiastic supporter of Nazi Germany.

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  • Spirits – a horror story (the finale)

    Spirits – a horror story (the finale)

    As Halloween approached again, I learned the hard way that the old cliché you hear about the one-year anniversary of a loved one’s death being hard is dead-fucking-on. I’d be out grocery shopping or running errands and for brief instants I could swear I could see him. Someone would catch my eye and something about them – the set of their mouth as they perused a menu; or their gait; or a turn of phrase, like “a couple three” – would remind me of my father so strongly that for a dizzying moment I felt the uncanny sense that he was somehow there. When I got a letter from the Cremation Society a few weeks before Halloween telling me that “the anniversary of a death can stir up many emotions all over again and may come when you least expect them,” I thought to myself “no fucking shit,” and threw the thing in the trash. 

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  • Horror Fiction Book Review – “Tender is the Flesh,” by Augustina Bazterrica

    Horror Fiction Book Review – “Tender is the Flesh,” by Augustina Bazterrica

    This book is some sick shit. It’s possibly the most fucked-up book I’ve ever read…..And I mean that in the best way possible.

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  • Horror Fiction Book Review – “Burnt Offerings” by Robert Marasco

    Horror Fiction Book Review – “Burnt Offerings” by Robert Marasco

    “Burnt Offerings” by Robert Marasco is a 1974 haunted house novel that supposedly influenced Stephen King’s 1977 horror classic “The Shining.” I haven’t seen ay first hand verification by King himself that Marasco was an influence, but for what it’s worth, he lists “Burnt Offerings” in the Appendix to his non-fiction book about the post-World War Two horror genre, “Dance Macabre” (which is a must-read for any horror fan). He even asterisked “Burnt Offerings” in his Appendix, which denotes that he believed it to be “particularly important” to the genre.

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  • Spirits – a horror story (Part four of five)

    Spirits – a horror story (Part four of five)

    Before I called 911, Eli and I went through what we would tell the police. It was an accident. Grandpa tripped and fell. Daddy tried to help. They questioned me and Eli separately, but whatever the boy had seen, he told them the right thing. He was a good boy.

    I put him to bed, then went into the bathroom and looked at myself in the mirror. I vowed to prove my father wrong, to be a better father to Eli than my father had been to me. That Eli would never become like him. Like me. Alcoholism had plagued my family from time immemorial, like some ancient curse. But it would stop here. 

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  • Horror Fiction Book Review – “The Final Girl Support Group,” by Grady Hendrix

    Horror Fiction Book Review – “The Final Girl Support Group,” by Grady Hendrix

    I read and thorougly enjoyed “Paperbacks from Hell” and “My Best Friend’s Exorcism” by Grady Hendrix a few years back, so decided that I’d read his most recent book, 2021’s “The Final Girl Support Group” this Halloween. I was not disappointed.

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