Essays
1093 results
Page 94
The Czech Republic on foot
Czech adventure: Surprises of a week of serious walking
I've been a traveler on foot for many years. My latest long-distance walk took me from Vienna to Prague. It's amazing what surprises you can stumble across when you forsake planes, trains and cars.
Essays
8 minute read
World Team Tennis: Antidote for sports violence
Old tennis pros never die (and neither do their fans)
Must professional sports bring out the worst in their fans? Consider one exception: World Team Tennis, where even the abrasive John McEnroe behaves like a teddy bear.
Essays
5 minute read
A few kind words for 'genre' films
My advice to film critics: It's the genre, stupid
Like Rodney Dangerfield, genre films— Westerns, say, or crime films, horror films, musicals or screwball comedies— get no respect from critics. Yet the various genres of poplar film constitute a nation's great family tree book of national fables.
Essays
7 minute read
How I became a writer, c. 1961 (Part 2)
Becoming a writer, c. 1961: Timid first steps at Brandeis
No one in my extended family wrote or painted, sculpted or composed. My relatives were doctors or lawyers or schoolteachers. But a rebel stream had run through the 1950s sea of repression and conformity in which I'd grown up.
"Hidden City Philadelphia' (3rd review)
Hidden no more: When art and architecture meet history
Last month's “Hidden City” performance sites not only revealed their secret pleasures to viewers but also presented themselves as a powerful constellation of art, architecture, history and lived human experience. In more cases than not, the historical site overwhelmed the artists' engagement, but the result was still deliciously satisfying.
Essays
10 minute read
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How the world works (Philadelphia, 1961)
How the world works: A Philadelphia lesson, c. 1961
After three decades of work for Philadelphia's Democratic City Committee, my Dad prided himself on his ability to get things done. But now I was on trial before a cranky Republican magistrate. What to do?
Hidden City Philadelphia (2nd review)
If these walls could talk (and this month, they did)
The recent Hidden Cities Arts Festival is an art experience that's about much more than the effect of individual work. It also exemplifies the sort of current socially immersed art that's too often hidden in favor of showier work.
Essays
5 minute read
On being a Twit
Reach out and bore someone
In barely three years, Twitter has attracted 30 million users. And why not? Who wouldn't embrace a remarkable new technology that allows you to make a fool of yourself on a public stage, just like Shaquille O'Neal and Terrell Owens?
Essays
4 minute read
How I became a writer: a 1960 memoir (Part 1)
The turning point at Brandeis U.: How I became a writer, circa 1960
“These papers are abominably bad,” said my freshman English instructor. “But one of you shows promise.” Now, who could that be?
One woman's quest for peace and quiet
Do I hear an urban symphony?
In Philadelphia I once heard a mockingbird sing outside my house on Brandywine Street. But only once. As my cross-country peregrinations have proven, peace and quiet are hard to find no matter where you live.
Essays
6 minute read