Ferida Wolff
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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Underwater on a Hunt For History of the Roman Empire
“There is a lot of theoretical work on the maritime economy of the Roman Empire, but I am interested in the close details of sea travel and how archeological finds can shed light on the history of consumption and connectivity around the Mediterranean,” says Justin Leidwanger, a maritime archeologist. Stanford scholar Justin Leidwanger spends…
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Chris Payne’s Photographic Essay, Textiles: Made In America
Chris Payne writes: I pay tribute to the undervalued segment of Americans workers who labor in this manufacturing sector. They are a cross section of young and old, skilled and unskilled, recent immigrants and veteran employees, some of whom have spent their entire working lives in a single factory. Together, they share a quiet pride…
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Interview: How You Can Help Find an MIA
Megan McCloskey writes: There are 45,000 service members missing in action from World War II and other wars who experts say are recoverable. But the Pentagon’s $100 million per year effort to identify them has solved surprisingly few cases – 60 MIAs were sent home last year.
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Private Lives: Stanford Graduate Students Show Phone Record Surveillance Can Yield Significant Information
Two computer science graduate students have found that the NSA’s mass collection of phone records can yield much more information about people’s private lives than the US government claims. New research shows how “metadata” surveillance can be used to identify information about callers including medical conditions, financial and legal connections, and even whether they own…
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One Swedish Solution to the Pay Gap: Be a Man
Sweden is considered one of the most equal countries in the world. However, the gap between men and women’s salaries has hardly changed at all for the past thirty years. At the current pace, it will take more than a century to reach equal pay. To protest against this, Annelie Nordström, President of Sweden’s largest…
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Modern Nature: Georgia O’Keeffe and Lake George, The Spirit of Place
“I wish you could see the place here — there is something so perfect about the mountains and the lake and the trees — Sometimes I want to tear it all to pieces — it seems so perfect.” The exhibit includes magnified botanical compositions of the flowers and vegetables that O’Keeffe grew in her garden…
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An Unsung Heroine of Downton Abbey: Isis
Editor’s Note: In case you missed the spotlight on the particular pet of Downton Abbey, Isis, we thought we should provide the Masterpiece Theater feature that, we had not seen. We were glad to see that into the season, she reappeared as the flag-bearer and lead actor, so to speak, when the castle appeared ahead…
