VERTIGO
In 1958, nearing the end of a decade of directing some of his most memorable and deeply profound films, Alfred Hitchcock completed...
WORDSWORDSWORDS#5 (Fulsome/Peruse)
If you ask most people about the words listed above--"fulsome" and "peruse", you would likely be told that the first word means "highly"...
THE NEW NOVEL
I thought I'd start a series about those works of art that have made an impact on me over the years. I might as well start by discussing...
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...