Train service is one of the things that travelers know is much better in Europe and Asia than in the US. Who hasn’t traveled to say, Switzerland or England, and marveled at the speed and the efficiency of their rail transport? I took a train across Austria a few years […]
In the gloom that we called Sunday afternoon, we watched a movie filmed in contemporary Naples called Gomorrah. Like its Biblical namesake, this southern Italian city is indeed a place full of vices and the portrayal of life in the tenements was gritty and grim. It was one of those […]
Christina and Janet are two middle aged women with the same terrible problem. They were profiled on a chilling television program on A&E called ‘Hoarders,’ which showed their jam-packed houses where piles upon piles of clothing, boxes and thousands of other things lie in disgusting piles. There are narrow trails […]
I read in today’s NY Times about an NBC executive who came to the sudden defense of the chin–also known as Jay Leno–who has been attacked recently by his fellow late-night talk show hosts. Ebersol says its gutless, and ‘chicken hearted’ for Conan to be mad at Jay, because the […]
Last night I watched a Spike Lee movie. It was terrible, and it was very long. Amazingly, I kept on until the bitter end, until the last bullet hole was drilled into a body with spurting blood, until the final Nazi machine gunner was thrown down and the last leg […]
“Watch your mouth. Don’t use those curse words!” Faris chastised the only Jewish member of the FBI investigative team as they surveyed the damage from a massive bombing and shooting attack at an American compound in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. We were watching a 2007 film called “The Kingdom” […]
Have you ever taken out a payday loan? These loans are famous in working-class and minority neighborhoods and can add up to as much as 400% annual interest! In Virginia, the state is trying out a new program that offers cash-strapped workers a way to avoid the trap of these […]
In the NY Times, Northampton was described as a “town on tenterhooks.” This expression goes back to 14th century, and refers to the ‘tenters’ which were used to stretch out wool in the sun, so that it wouldn’t shrink when it was being cleaned. The woodent tenter held it stretched […]
When Barry Morrow won Best Screenplay Oscar for Rain Man, he gave the precious statuette to the original Rain Man, Kim Peek, who had inspired the screenplay. The savant who would become world famous after the movie won four Oscars died last week, leaving the world without an incredible mind […]
A story by Scott McCartney in yesterday’s WSJ convinced me never to ever pack anything with real value in my checked in bags. The story was about how many bags are looted and stolen from, and to make it worse, have their tags ripped off so the luggage never makes […]
I set out for the Y this morning without the book I’m reading. So I found another book on my shelf and dove in…it’s called Devils and the Deep Blue Sea: The Dreams and Schemes and Showdowns that built America’s Cruise-ship Empires. It begins by recounting the last day on […]
A front page story by Scott Patterson in Saturday’s WSJ detailed the scary times last fall when it seemed the economy was collapsing right in front of our eyes. Warren Buffett says ‘he looked into the abyss’ when confronted with the scene–the government bailing out big banks, and most of […]