
WORDSWORDSWORDS#4 (Short-Lived/Flied Out)
My own children scoffed when I said about something ephemeral that it was "short-lived", pronouncing "lived" to rhyme with "jived". I...


SMILING THROUGH THE APOCALYPSE Esquire in the 60s
The era of great and influential and stylish and witty and provocative magazines is long gone, and our culture is the sadder for it....


ON THE ROAD (Episode 2) The Codex Leicester
Here's another entry about a trip I took with students. Before we saw a Broadway show in 2003, I took my AP classes to the venerable...


DR. SALK
Seems like a good time to bring up a vaccination story. People today don't remember the panic that engulfed America in the 1930s because...


HERBIE
April is Jazz Appreciation Month! I'm always interested in introducing students to some great music. Since most music today is...


ALVIN AILEY
Back in 1975, my wife and I got the opportunity to vary our traditional practice of seeing the American Ballet Theatre or the New York...


WORDSWORDSWORDS#3 (Cliche/Couldn'tCareLess/Hold the Fort)
More change! It was probably about twenty years ago that I first noticed the appearance of the word "cliche" as an adjective in addition...


LADY SOUL
When I was in my early teens, I used to listen to Top 40 radio on WABC am radio from New York, a ubiquitous voice blaring from transistor...

THE FUNNY PAGES: Calvin and Hobbes
There were many motifs that ran through the strip, sparked by Calvin's vivid imagination. He travelled through the cosmos as a spaceman...


ALICE WATERS
Back in the day, chic New York City restaurants were typically French. Their famous entrees were traditionally prepared with a variety...