Essays
1095 results
Page 67
Neil Armstrong: Cold War by-product (2nd comment)
The hero as team player: Neil Armstrong and modern mythology
The self-effacing Neil Armstrong went to the Moon for all the wrong reasons, and the manned space flight program is now in mothballs. Yet future ages may remember the Moon landing as the signal event of the 20th Century.
Essays
6 minute read
Neil Armstrong: the engineer as celebrity (1st comment)
The exasperating modesty of the first man on the Moon
Neil Armstrong's self-effacing manner mystified the news media. They wanted a celebrity; he gave them an engineer. But it's the modest technologists like Armstrong, not the publicity-hungry actors and politicians, who transform our lives.
Essays
4 minute read
High heels and female fantasies
What I could tell the Catwoman about high heels
In action movies, gorgeous women in high heels lash out at male attackers with nary a pinched toe. In real life, women in high heels are helpless and often miserable, as I've learned from personal experience.
Essays
5 minute read
HBO's "Girls': Where feminism failed
When will 'Girls' grow up?
Lena Dunham's “Girls,” on HBO, has been called the voice of the generation. But I can't help wondering: What generation is she addressing? My generation of women changed the world in the 1970s. To judge from “Girls,” not much has changed since then.
Essays
4 minute read
Poets' Night at the London Pub: A 1980 memoir
Hooked on poetry: A Philadelphia memoir (c.1980)
The poets who once showed up for Monday night readings at the London Pub seemed an odd assortment of professionals and neophytes, from all racial and ethnic backgrounds. But we shared one thing in common: an urge to feel the musicality of the language.
Essays
4 minute read
A writer contemplates posterity
After I'm gone, or: Texting for posterity
As a science fiction author who specializes in writing about the future, I sometimes wonder: What about my future? What have I contributed to human progress? The answers have a way of popping up where you least expect— in South American dictatorships, for example.
Essays
5 minute read
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My mother's cherished possessions
The thrift shop cometh, or: Disposing of Mama's treasures
I'm the last survivor in my family, and so I've become my family's museum— the repository of all our lost dreams and desires. What am I supposed to do with all these crystal, porcelain and lace symbols that once defined the finer things in life?
Essays
3 minute read
A noir memoir: Philadelphia before the "60s
Jazz and cocktails: The hip life in Philadelphia, c. 1963
The early ‘60s, before the Cultural Revolution, was a time when a hipster could read books and be a tough guy too. We suburban children of the Greatest Generation yearned to rediscover what was left of our underclass roots. My search focused on the dives and jazz joints of Center City Philadelphia.
Essays
9 minute read
Life lessons from professional soccer
Today Chester, tomorrow the world, or: The globalization of soccer
Do sports really provide useful life lessons? In the age of globalization, the answer is yes— if the sport is professional soccer.
Essays
4 minute read
The little bookshop that could
My own personal librarian
In the age of chain mega-bookstores that entice customers with cappuccino bars and special events, one independent Center City shop has survived the old-fashioned way— with personal attention to its books and its patrons.
Essays
4 minute read