I first saw professional Russian folk dancing when I was a child in the late 1950s, when during Khrushchev’s cultural “thaw” the Moiseyev Dance Company came to New York. The performance I attended (with my family, of course) was in … Continue reading →
I subscribed to The New Yorker from around 1975 to 2005. I loved the magazine for most of those years and if I recall correctly it was the only magazine to which I subscribed. Many weeks I read it cover … Continue reading →
The Democrats’ message that violent crime isn’t bad in Washington DC is a prime example of what Milan Kundera called “imagology.” I’ve written about imagology before; it’s one of the earliest themes on this blog, with my first post on … Continue reading →
Tom Lehrer has died at the age of 97. I’ve written about Lehrer before; you can find many of those posts here. I was raised on Lehrer from early childhood, which is a bit weird since many of his songs … Continue reading →
Robert F. Graboyes is a writer I often read, and I recommend this more personal piece he wrote about his beloved recently-deceased wife. RIP. She sounds like a rare and wonderful person, and it sounds as though they had a … Continue reading →
Trump’s on a roll. Here’s the agreement reached in his lawsuit against CBS for deceptively editing a Kamala Harris interview to make her look better: Paramount Global and CBS agreed on Tuesday to pay President Donald Trump a sum that … Continue reading →
I was generally an excellent student, but my worst and most disliked subject was foreign languages. I’m not sure why, except that I hated having to memorize lists of words. I took Spanish because I was told it was easier … Continue reading →
And I’ll throw this one in, too. Pretty racy for 1953:
Continue reading →Please watch this video. I’m not keen on this style of dancing; it ordinarily doesn’t interest me. But the reason I’m featuring this is that it’s an excellent demonstration of an element of dance called attack. Attack isn’t necessarily hostile, … Continue reading →
[NOTE: This a slightly edited version of a previous post of mine.] Father’s Day. A sort of poor stepchild to Mother’s Day, although fathers themselves are hardly that. They are central to a family. Just ask the people who never … Continue reading →
A musical genius, gone at 82. Then again, who ever thought Brian Wilson would reach the ripe old age of 82? But he did, and gave us a lot of music along the way. The Beach Boys were a family … Continue reading →
Commenter “Jamie” has an interesting observation: I am reminded that this blog used to be called NeoNeocon, and I used to read it as eagerly then as I do now – and I believed to my bones something approximately the … Continue reading →