It was inevitable. As soon as one or more of the pundits coined the phrase “life in the time of the pandemic,” we reached onto the bookshelf of memory and pulled down the copy of Nobel Prize-winning author Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s life-changing volume Love in the Time of Cholera.
This is the moment in which we […]
We feel it only fair to offer this gentle warning before you invest a few moments reading what follows. This piece is a bit different than others we have written. It draws heavily on history, reflects on those historical references and, with no subtlety intended, holds a mirror to what has become almost a cliché […]
It was one of those moments beyond logic … or control. The title of Alison Larkin’s wonderful, best-selling novel is The English American. At its very mention, in the recesses of the mind, where one’s personal “Spotify” play list lies in wait, the mention of the title evoked the plaintive lyrics of Sting’s An Englishman […]
There is something gracefully disarming about a conversation with Alan Wager and Robert Levinstein. They are so fully engaged as the managing director (Robert) and artistic director (Alan) of the Sharon Playhouse, that most every topic turns into a celebration of the theater, the community, the way in which a potentially nightmare summer has turned […]
A week on, the vacuum still picks up the occasional wiry hair. It would seem that the dining room rug has been crisscrossed 20 times, and yet the mementos of our nighttime guest persist. But, in fairness, back to the beginning.
For those of us who have chosen to […]
It was as if, one morning, without any warning, we arose to find the world a different place.
Because, it was.
Almost overnight, we acquired a new lexicon of terms and a distant geographic awareness that crash landed at home. Wuhan. Bergamo. Social distancing. Shelter in place. Virtual … everything.
It […]
2008 changed a lot of lives. The economy tanked, and people lost their jobs. Businesses closed. The prospects were bleak and those with enterprise and ambition had little time to pivot … to find their next move.
After finishing prep school at Master’s School in West Simsbury, CT, Zachary DeBisschop plied his estimable talents as a […]
The shirt on your back. The comforter on your bed. The flag flying in the yard. All the work of the weaver’s art.
True, most of the delicate hand-work done with mesmerizing rhythm by hand weavers has long ago been eclipsed by one of the early developments of the Industrial Revolution. Great bolts of cloth almost […]
One of the standard images in introductory art history classes is Rembrandt’s Syndics of the Cloth Guild, a 17th century portrait of six distinguished gentlemen who shared a common vocation and were proud members of the local guild. In existence since the early days of the Roman Empire, guilds had become the professional refuge of […]
We live in a strange time – a moment when some of our trusted norms and traditions seem to evaporate with the slide of a “mouse” or the flick across a phone screen. Word processing allowed everyone to become a writer – no more laboring with pens, pads, typewriters and carbon paper. Finish the screed […]