Essays

1094 results
Page 67
Armstrong at work: Not an actor, just the real deal.

Neil Armstrong: the engineer as celebrity (1st comment)

The exasperating modesty of the first man on the Moon

Neil Armstrong's self-effacing manner mystified the news media. They wanted a celebrity; he gave them an engineer. But it's the modest technologists like Armstrong, not the publicity-hungry actors and politicians, who transform our lives.
Tom Purdom

Tom Purdom

Essays 4 minute read
Hathaway as Catwoman: Do those shoes hurt?

High heels and female fantasies

What I could tell the Catwoman about high heels

In action movies, gorgeous women in high heels lash out at male attackers with nary a pinched toe. In real life, women in high heels are helpless and often miserable, as I've learned from personal experience.
Alaina Johns

Alaina Johns

Essays 5 minute read
Dunham contemplates the Big Apple: New generation, same old story.

HBO's "Girls': Where feminism failed

When will 'Girls' grow up?

Lena Dunham's “Girls,” on HBO, has been called the voice of the generation. But I can't help wondering: What generation is she addressing? My generation of women changed the world in the 1970s. To judge from “Girls,” not much has changed since then.
Susan Beth Lehman

Susan Beth Lehman

Essays 4 minute read
Could I inhabit the same stage with Lamont B. Steptoe (above)?

Poets' Night at the London Pub: A 1980 memoir

Hooked on poetry: A Philadelphia memoir (c.1980)

The poets who once showed up for Monday night readings at the London Pub seemed an odd assortment of professionals and neophytes, from all racial and ethnic backgrounds. But we shared one thing in common: an urge to feel the musicality of the language.

C. Natale Peditto

Essays 4 minute read
Did I help undermine Generalissimo Francisco Franco?

A writer contemplates posterity

After I'm gone, or: Texting for posterity

As a science fiction author who specializes in writing about the future, I sometimes wonder: What about my future? What have I contributed to human progress? The answers have a way of popping up where you least expect— in South American dictatorships, for example.
Tom Purdom

Tom Purdom

Essays 5 minute read

My mother's cherished possessions

The thrift shop cometh, or: Disposing of Mama's treasures

I'm the last survivor in my family, and so I've become my family's museum— the repository of all our lost dreams and desires. What am I supposed to do with all these crystal, porcelain and lace symbols that once defined the finer things in life?

Maralyn Lois Polak

Essays 3 minute read

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Pulp fiction by Goodis: When hipsters mixed with mobsters.

A noir memoir: Philadelphia before the "60s

Jazz and cocktails: The hip life in Philadelphia, c. 1963

The early ‘60s, before the Cultural Revolution, was a time when a hipster could read books and be a tough guy too. We suburban children of the Greatest Generation yearned to rediscover what was left of our underclass roots. My search focused on the dives and jazz joints of Center City Philadelphia.

C. Natale Peditto

Essays 9 minute read
Valdez: Cheers for a Philadelphian from Colombia.

Life lessons from professional soccer

Today Chester, tomorrow the world, or: The globalization of soccer

Do sports really provide useful life lessons? In the age of globalization, the answer is yes— if the sport is professional soccer.
Tom Purdom

Tom Purdom

Essays 4 minute read
Muffins, no; books, yes.

The little bookshop that could

My own personal librarian

In the age of chain mega-bookstores that entice customers with cappuccino bars and special events, one independent Center City shop has survived the old-fashioned way— with personal attention to its books and its patrons.

Jane Biberman

Essays 4 minute read
What I'd look like today (if I hadn't quit too soon)

Memoirs of a not-quite Web pioneer

Move over, Bill Gates, or: Memoirs of an Internet pioneer (who chickened out)

Before Facebook, before Twitter, even before Netscape, I conceived Internet brainstorms that could have made me gazillions. So where did I go wrong?
Derek S.B. Davis

Derek S.B. Davis

Essays 7 minute read