Culture Watch

Rose Madeline Mula: If You Can’t Stand the Heat

Rose Madeline Mula Writes: “It was with considerable trepidation, therefore, that I entered the kitchen of my hostess, the legendary actress, Joan Fontaine, one long-ago Thanksgiving morning, to offer my assistance. Acting was not Miss Fontaine’s only talent. Not by a long shot. She was also a hole-in-one golfer, a prize-winning fisherwoman, a hot air…
An Undocumented Childhood by Rose Madeline Mula

Rose Mula Writes: Some people never leave home without their American Express card; I never leave home without a camera. Digitized pictures of the twenty-five countries and forty-plus states of America that I’ve visited since my first tour of exotic New Hampshire constantly flash on my computer monitors and digital frames throughout my home, helping…
Julia Sneden Wrote: Love Your Library

Julia Sneden Wrote: My mind’s eye can still see the face of the Children’s Librarian, although I have long since forgotten her name. We will be wise to continue to back up our knowledge of history and literature and art and science with hard copy. She kept up with my reading level, suggesting writers and…
Julia Sneden Wrote: If The Shoe Fits … You Can Bet It’s Not Fashionable

Julia Sneden Wrote: My mother was a mini Imelda Marcos. She kept upwards of 40 pairs of shoes well into her 80’s, and was crushed when she had to give up high heels following a heart attack at the age of 89. Her sole criterion in buying shoes was style, not comfort, and she was…
Joan L.Cannon Wrote: A Family Inheritance: More Than ‘Things’ … Emblems of Our Lives

Joan Cannon wrote: As one advances in years, one accumulates possessions the way a caddis fly larva accumulates grit. The glue that makes us carry it all along with us is in a way self-secreted as well. However, it’s psychic rather than physical — emotional rather than material. Perhaps the most obvious example is a…
Julia Sneden Wrote: Old Dogs, New Tricks

Julia Sneden wrote: At the age of 37, I started a new career as a kindergarten teacher. My first day on the job, the lead teacher, who was in her 70’s and scared me every bit as much as she scared the children, watched me writing a note. “You’ll have to change the way you…
Joan Cannon Writes: Finding the Right Excuse; Committing Words to Paper Because …

Joan Cannon Writes: Think of the poets and novelists and playwrights whose words sink into the consciousness of thousands and even millions and remain there, as emblems, guides, beacons of hope or warnings of disasters, and the excuse (as if one is needed) presents itself. Maybe there’s information or a revelation for some unknown viewer…
Joan Cannon Asked: What is a Book Club? An Old-Fashioned Book Report? A Program Given By an Author? What Is the Accepted Practice?

Joan L. Cannnon wrote: A year or so ago, I was invited to attend a tea given by the combined membership of all the book clubs in the town where I now live. A presentation was scheduled for the proprietor of the much-loved local independent book store cum gift shop. She is a legend in…
Current Reading, Cum Laude in Evading Bandits

15 Tips from well-traveled New York Times columnist, Nicholas Kristof, for students abroad pursuing a degree but also for the novice and experienced traveler: Buy a secondhand local cell phone for $20, outfit it with a local SIM card and keep it in your pocket.
Call Me Woman Who Swims With Turtles

Ferida Wolff writes: They have always been seen as mystical creatures, a symbol of longevity and bring good luck into a house. Some say that if you dream of a turtle, it foretells of an incident that will bring amusement or an improvement in business.
Calm Sea Palace at the Garden of Perfect Clarity*

“In the early 18th century, the theatre building itself acquired new importance as proof of courtly or civic power. A wave of building across Europe established the theatre types we know today.”
Galileo’s Instruments and the Outflow Water Clock

Philadelphia’s Franklin Institute is displaying in an exhibition titled Galileo, the Medici and the Age of Astronomy, one of those gorgeous brass instruments that resemble jewelry: an armillary sphere. All ages can participate in Science in Play, a…
Changing Lives Through Literature

Changing Lives Through Literature, an alternative sentencing program: “One study indicated that only 19 percent of CLTL ‘graduates’ re-offended while a comparison group of offenders had a 45 percent recidivism rate”
Book Reviews: Mother Warriors and Cancer; 50 Essential Things to Do

Mother Warriors by Jenny McCarthy, © 2008 Plume Books/Penguin Group Paperback: 217 pp plus 27 pp of resources If you know anyone with a child who has received a diagnosis of autism, information about this little book, along with the author’s earli…
Music and the Brain

“In music one must think with the heart and feel with the brain.” George Szell The Library of Congress presents a series and section labeled as Music and the Brain. Lectures, conversations and symposia focus on the recognition of research combin…
When to Retire, Reconsidered

Pew Research has published a new brief concerning a Social & Demographic Trend entitled The Threshold Generation. What follows are some segments from that release: “Overall, 37% of full-time employed adults of all ages say they have thought in t…
Giftshopping at an Eco-friendly destination

The combination of floral enameled products with newly-popular-again Indigo and Batik items as well as kurtas for mothers and children make this an appealing site.
Depression Babies Remember

Results from a National Bureau of Economic Research working paper shows shows that good or bad investing experiences early in life leave a lasting impression that “fades away only very slowly.”