Childhood memories of black and white television. The Lone Ranger. “Hopalong” Cassidy. Wyatt Earp. Gene Autry. Gabby Hayes. Bass Reeves.
Who?
Bass Reeves. He was not on the list of western heroes who filled the screen with 30-minute installments of fantasies about the taming of the frontier. His moment came many decades later when, after a lengthy […]
With the shorter days and early darkness of winter, the screening of Napoleon began as an afternoon matinee and ended as night fell. It is a long film, spanning years of turmoil and combat in the early years of the 19th century.
The “Reign of Terror” had finally come to an end and the […]
Ah, it’s December! It’s time to roll out the traditional holiday favorites: Miracle on 34th Street, White Christmas, Polar Express, It’s a Wonderful Life, and that all-time classic, Fiddler on the Roof.
Fiddler on the Roof?
True, the musical based on Tevye and His Daughters by Sholem Aleichem, is not a Christmas story. Far from it. […]
There are powerful rhythms in art, music, and literature that certainly don’t subscribe to a strict 4/4 time. Images will reappear years after we first see them. Passages from books that were favorites a decade ago will suddenly manifest themselves in an article, a quote on the late news, or a weather-worn bumper sticker on […]
Somehow, “spring cleaning” got passed over this year. Perhaps it was the end of a strange New England winter and the slide into a rainy summer season that let the annual rite of purging slide by, unfulfilled. So, we decided to institute another annual tradition – fall cleaning.
Closets are always a great place […]
“It’s been quite a summer.” It’s an innocent enough line delivered by a total stranger, offered to pass a few moments while waiting for the barista to fulfil a request for a very large iced coffee. And, with brief reflection, the statement was quite true. Heat, humidity, raging thunderstorms, flooding … just the weather would […]
Near the end of the interview on CBS Sunday Morning, Dani Izzie put her life as a quadriplegic in clear, direct perspective: “I don’t want to go to the grocery store and have somebody randomly come up to me and say, ‘You’re so inspiring.’ Why? Because I’m at the grocery store? I want to be […]
Remembering Tina
When Tina “the Queen of Rock ’n Roll” Turner died recently, the digital music universe reverberated in tribute by presenting her feisty renditions of Proud Mary, What’s Love Got to Do With It?, and You Better Be Good to Me. Ranging from her early, turbulent days with Ike Turner to her supercharged career revival […]
There can be something mildly satisfying about standing in the check-out line at your go-to grocery store, waiting for Jill, or whoever your favorite checker might be. We can recognize that “self check” might save time and certainly save the grocery management salaries, but waiting (im)patiently in […]
For reasons, obvious to some and confounding to others, many of us are unabashed collectors. Well designed, beautifully executed objects hypnotize us into swirls of fantasy and, at times, an obsessive need to have these items for ourselves. Pens. Watches. Bells. Glass sculptures. And, perhaps the most […]