I usually don’t watch convention speeches or speeches in general, but I was curious about two last night and decided to watch them. Neither was so very long, and both were interesting. The first was Guiliani’s fiery anti-Hillary pro-Trump shoutfest, … Continue reading →
It’s often an empty exercise to mourn what might have been. One reason is that one can never know, because the road not taken is just that: not taken. We are free to imagine any “if only” that suits our … Continue reading →
In announcing that the FBI does not recommend bringing charges against Hillary for matters related to her private email server, Director James Comey said in effect she’s a fool, not a knave. The complete text of Comey’s statement can be … Continue reading →
You’ve probably heard about Christy Sheats, 42, the Texas mother who recently killed her 17- and 22-year-old daughters in front of their father, citing as her motivation a desire to punish him (she committed the murders on his birthday). The … Continue reading →
I noticed a lot of talk about Scotland and the Scots in several threads recently, so I thought it might be time to put up a video of one of my favorite SNL running bits:
Continue reading →I’ve never been one of those folks who seek out and soak up obsessive details about rock musicians—the minutiae of their lives and loves and drug habits and the like, although I realize it’s somewhat of a cottage industry. But … Continue reading →
…to Corey Lewandowski. NOTE: For those of you who don’t get the “buh-bye” reference, it’s from this 1994 Saturday Night Live sketch (I can’t find the whole thing to embed; this is just excerpts): [ADDENDUM: Here’s a link to the … Continue reading →
…is Nadezhda, a Russian ballet dancer who burst onto the scene in the 70s dancing with the Perm Ballet and then the Bolshoi, and who revolutionized the “look” of ballet. I remember the first photos I saw of Pavlova, she … Continue reading →
When I was a child there were a lot of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers movies shown on TV. I probably saw all of them (some, many many times), and I loved them. Most of these movies displayed Astaire and … Continue reading →
I’ve mentioned before that I’ve taken to watching the TV program “Forensic Files,” often as background while I’m writing or reading online. I used to use cable news stations for that purpose, but no more. I haven’t watched a single … Continue reading →
I can’t remember why I was doing it, but the other night I was researching the life of Harriet Beecher Stowe and I discovered a few surprising things. The first was that Stowe had seven children in addition to writing … Continue reading →
Ballet roles can be learned through video, but it’s insufficient. Most leading ballet dancers are taught their roles by coaches, ordinarily well-known retired dancers. It’s not usually a question of teaching technique; that is already firmly in place. It’s expression, … Continue reading →