December 2011
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“You can’t start the next chapter of your life if you keep rereading the...”
November 2011
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Ars Poetica - Editing Your Memories →
You know those poems known as ars poetica? Latin for “the art of poetry” or “on the nature of poetry,” they are poems about poetry. There are examples of them by Aristotle and Horace and…
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“I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by.”
– Douglas Adams
The Age of Wonder →
When was your personal age of wonder? I suspect that for most people it occurred in childhood. The Wonder Years was a TV show that saw it as the teen years. If you take a dictionary approach to…
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“All good writing is swimming under water and holding your breath.”
– F. Scott Fitzgerald
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"Community" To Return To NBC Midseaon Primetime... →
Who can trust networks though…
Keep Community in the headlines, keeping the buzz going.
What is this Community show everyone is talking about? Check it out. New episode next week, on December 1, NBC.
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Movie Stars' Worst Movies →
Not obvious ones like Ben Affleck’s Gigli or George Clooney’s Batman & Robin. How about Johnny Depp as a horny teen in a sex-romp called Private Resort or Sandra Bullock making sweet jungle love in the cheapo adventure Fire on the Amazon or Brad Pitt as the lovelorn high school jock in Cutting Class…
The Age of Wonder →
When was your personal age of wonder? I suspect that for most people it occurred in childhood. The Wonder Years was a TV show that saw it as the teen years. If you take a dictionary approach to…
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NJ DOT Reports More than 4700 deer killed by cars... →
The New Jersey Department of Transportation says more than 4,700 deer have been killed by vehicles through the first week of November. That’s on pace to nearly match last year’s total of…
National Student Poets To Be Chosen →
This past week, First Lady Michelle Obama helped launched a new arts program to pick five high school student poets who will spend one year promoting poetry through readings, workshops and…
National Student Poets To Be Chosen →
This past week, First Lady Michelle Obama helped launched a new arts program to pick five high school student poets who will spend one year promoting poetry through readings, workshops and…
A Face in the Crowd →
With all the election talk on the news, I was reminded of a film I saw in high school that doesn’t often get mentioned. It is A Face in the Crowd, a 1957 film starring Andy Griffith,…
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Hannah and Her Sisters →
Maybe Woody Allen’s best (or Annie Hall or Midnight in Paris or…) and it’s a Thanksgiving film about family, renewal, and the resilience of the human heart. I share that crush on Lee. Well, really it is a crush on Barbara Hershey.
Critics’ Picks: Hannah and Her Sisters with A. O. Scott
Harvard Opens i-lab
The Harvard Innovation Lab, an incubator designed for students on campus, opened this month.
The i-lab, as it is known by abbreviation, began as a response to Boston Mayor Thomas Menino’s desire to introduce more innovation spaces Boston.
The i-lab’s Nov. 18 opening offered the promise of raising the next generation of startup CEOs right. The building itself not only includes classrooms for...
Thanksgiving Day
Although the Thanksgiving festivities celebrated by the Pilgrims and a tribe of Wampanoag Indians happened in 1621, it wasn’t until 1789 that the newly sworn-in President George Washington declared, in his first presidential proclamation, a day of national “thanksgiving and prayer” for that November.
The holiday fell out of custom, though, and by the mid 1800s only a handful of...
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November Rain
How separate we are under our black umbrellas—dark planets in our own small orbits, hiding from this wet assault of weather as if water would violate the skin, as if these raised silk canopies could protect us from whatever is coming next— December with its white enamel surfaces; the numbing silences of winter. From above we must look like a family of bats— ribbed wings spread ...
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Shine and Chime →
Interesting mistake this month when the National Book Foundation made a mistake and announced that Shine by Lauren Myracle was a nominee in the Young People’s…
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The Arrow of Time
I watched an episode of The Fabric of the Cosmos last night on PBS. It is a series on NOVA hosted by Brian Greene from his book of the same title. This was part 2 on “Time and Experience” which deals with something we all think about (perhaps too much) and yet don’t really understand.
I have read a lot on the topic of time, particularly time travel which has long fascinated me. I have read...
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“I shall never get rid of this depression.”
– Last words of Vincent Van Gogh
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“Liberty of thought is the life of the soul.”
– Voltaire from “Essay on Epic Poetry” 1727)
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Voltaire
It’s the birthday of French writer, satirist, the embodiment of the 18th-century Enlightenment, Voltaire (1694-1778) - pseudonym of François-Marie Arouet.
Voltaire is remembered as a crusader against tyranny and bigotry.
Compared to Rousseau’s rebelliousness and idealism, Voltaire’s world view was more skeptical, but both of their ideas influenced deeply the French Revolution....
Stanford's Online High School
…As the line between virtual and classroom-based learning continues to blur, some see Stanford’s move as a sign that so, too, will the line between secondary and higher education. Several other universities — though none with the pedigree of Stanford — already operate online high schools, a development that has raised some questions about expertise and motives…
Into The Caves →
In 1940, four teenage boys and a dog named Robot stumbled upon Paleolithic drawings in a cave in Lascaux, France. A precise date for the art is difficult to determine but scientists used carbon…
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“There is nothing better than a friend, unless it is a friend with chocolate.”
– Charles Dickens
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