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The Third Avenue El above the Cross Bronx Expressway. (Photo by Jack Boucher, Historic American Engineering Record, Library of Congress)

Growing up in the Bronx

I am looking forward to hearing Arlene Alda on February 3 when she talks about her book, Just Kids from The Bronx: Telling It The Way It Was, at the Jewish Museum. If she'd asked for my recollections, here's what I would have told her.

AJ Sabatini

Feb 02, 2016 Essays 5 minute read

"Untitled." Drawing by Steve Fegan, alumnus of San Francisco Art Institute, now living at Pleasant Valley State Prison, California. Courtesy of the artist.

Questions of truth and identity

Beneath the burden of truth lies the questions of art

Needing for absolute truth, we create absolute power to defend that truth. Can the ambiguity within art assist us in embracing the paradoxes of living and eliminate the need for this boundless power?

Treacy Ziegler

Jan 30, 2016 Essays 5 minute read

I love the snow

There are three reasons to love snow; they're the same three reasons for loving anything.

Kile Smith

Jan 26, 2016 Essays 4 minute read

College prep? Keira Knightley and Matthew Macfadyen in “Pride & Prejudice” (© 2005 Focus Features)

Raising the bar, dimming the lights

Nobody truly appreciates a good book the first time he or she sees it.

David Feela

Jan 22, 2016 Essays 2 minute read

Celebrating the language that yanks us from the yadda-yadda-yadda of everyday speech. (Illustration for BSR by Mike Jackson of alrightmike.com)

Accidental poetry

Our time is less than infinite, and our monkey minds are full to bursting with the blather — so much of it repetitive, hucksterish, or simply dull — of everyday life. I say, take your poetry wherever you find it.

Anndee Hochmanand Illustration by Mike Jackson

Jan 12, 2016 Essays 5 minute read

The shot that decided a game of Russian roulette. ((Illustration from the French newspaper “Le Petit Journal” on July 12, 1914)

The Russian Roulette theory of history

Russian roulette is a dangerous game

Why did the archduke’s assassination trigger a war when other crises didn’t? And is that a useful question, or does it obscure a more important truth?

Tom Purdom

Jan 10, 2016 Essays 5 minute read

Gathering around the TV to watch some centrifugal bumble-puppy.

How do we get our news?

Breaking: BSR contributor launches newsfeed!

We have all become fairly sloppy about where we look for information to feed our minds and possibly act on. However, it is what it is, and in that spirit I am happy to announce that on December 18, I transformed my Twitter feed into a highly respected newsfeed.

Rick Soisson

Dec 21, 2015 Essays 5 minute read

"When we buried her, we tossed dice into the grave along with our shovels full of earth." (Photo by Diacritica via Creative Commons/Wikimedia)

Remembering my mother-outlaw

Judy was an outlaw. She disdained phony niceness, Republican grandstanding, and ambitious young women who claimed they weren’t really feminists. She was direct and uncensored; if you gave her a book she’d read before, she nudged it aside.

Anndee Hochman

Dec 15, 2015 Essays 5 minute read

An autistic artist communicates

The power of art

I was moved by seeing all of those little brown faces become more animated as the half hour went by and all pretense of cool faded away. They were so excited about art and life.

Maria Thompson Corley

Dec 13, 2015 Essays 4 minute read

Is the family Thanksgiving extinct? (“Thanksgiving Grace,” 1942; photo by Marjory Collins for the Farm Security Administration)

The millennial war on Thanksgiving

What hath the kids' table wrought?

Just when you thought no stone was unturned in millennials’ degradation of decent values, they’re transforming one of America’s favorite holidays. Alaina Johns considers.

Alaina Johns

Nov 24, 2015 Essays 4 minute read