I’m working on a Web site for First Night of Maplewood/South Orange. And I’m not especially happy with it. I’m finding new and exciting sIFR bugs for which I need to track down some solutions, particularly in how links don’t work in Safari. Probably it would be best to just go with graphics for the [...]
Here’s an interesting read from biologist Robert M. Sapolsky. A real fish-out-of-water story, it’s filled with amusing anecdotes based on his twenty-plus years’ experience in Kenya studying the behavior of baboon tribes and how their social hierarchy affects the stress levels, and therefore the health, of individuals.
Sapolsky somehow developed real personal relationships with the [...]
Not one to mince words, Frank’s 2008 volume, “The Wrecking Crew,” dissects the workings of the conservative movement, including the K-Street takeover along with its long roots in various unsavory, unethical and illegal activities going back to the 1980s. They may not call it a “bad government” movement, but that’s precisely what it is.
Dead at 96. All I’m going to say is that “The Good War” is an unforgettable book.
The Woodstock of American poetry happens every two years out in Waterloo Village, New Jersey. Today (Sunday) is the last of the four days’ worth of events, and yesterday a friend and I journeyed out there to hear the afternoon and evening sessions.
The highlight of the sessions for me was hearing two-time Poet Laureate [...]
I first stumbled across his work when I read “Shipping out: On the (nearly lethal) comforts of a luxury cruise” in the January 1996 issue of Harper’s. Harper’s continued to publish several of his essays over the years, such as Ticket to the Fair, a postmodern deconstruction of a midwest county fair. [sorry, these links [...]
Shopping the local B&N late one evening for some trashy sci-fi to read, I spotted a copy of a book of stories by Richard Matheson. I’d never heard of him, actually, but I had indeed heard of “The Incredible Shrinking Man.” You remember the classic black-and-white movie, featuring the climactic battle between the title character [...]
A former professor of mine died last week. Here’s his obituary from the Cleveland Plain Dealer. He was my European History prof when I was a freshman. As a freshman in the music school my interest in the subject was, shall we say, not exactly obsessive. Nevertheless, he hung in there and tried his best [...]
The nice people at Entertainment Weekly have been good enough to entertain us with a set of “new classics” top 100 lists. These lists, thank goodness, recognize the inherent bias in the “of all time” lists I’m always griping about and make it clear that these are the top 100 of the last 25 years. [...]
Somehow this latest entry from Elmore Leonard slipped by me when it was published. I picked up a copy at a library booksale, thinking I’d find it entertaining.
Meh. This sequel to “The Hot Kid” is not-so-hot, a Leonard-by-the-numbers timekiller that smells like something baked up to fill a contractual obligation. Good thing it only [...]
The Times ran a good story on the filming of Cormac McCarthy’s novel. Viggo Mortenson stars as the father, and newcomer Kodi Smit-McPhee is the boy.
While the novel takes place on a trek from the mountains of the south down towards to Gulf coast, the producers have used Pennsylvania, for a couple of reasons [...]
The Princeton professor and noted translator died today. If you’ve ever labored under the idea that the Greek classics were boring, stuffy, or just not action-packed enough for today’s modern world then you’ve never read his translation of The Odyssey.
The credit for the brilliant pacing and development of Odysseus’ long journey home, and which [...]
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