Essays
1096 results
Page 92
The Gosselins: An American travesty
Thank God I'm a city girl
Sometimes I wonder why I ever gave up country life for the big impersonal city. Then I think about the Gosselins of TV's reality show, “Jon & Kate Plus Eight,” and I remember. I never met the Gosselins, but I know them all too well.
Essays
3 minute read
Financial ingenuity in hard times
Making the best of our recession
In these economically trying times, ingenious bankers have found a new opportunity: life settlement insurance policies. If Al Capone were here, he could suggest a way to maximize their return on investment.
Essays
2 minute read
On the fringe of the Fringe Festival
On the fringe of the Fringe: More adventure than I bargained for
Philadelphia's Fringe Festival increasingly sends performers and audiences to remote neighborhoods they'd never visit otherwise. This sense of geographical discovery adds to the adventure. But sometimes you get too much adventure, as happened to me this year.
Essays
6 minute read
My grandfather's long voyage home
One man's legacy: My grandfather's final voyage
After his wife died, the old man spent eight months recreating the two-masted Newfoundland fishing schooner of his youth. Then he sailed off, secure in the serene knowledge that his legacy was intact.
Essays
9 minute read
Puddles: A Philadelphia memoir (c. 1950)
For the love of a dog: (A Philadelphia memoir, c. 1950)
My childhood dog Puddles had a mind of his own, but he faithfully followed my disjointed relatives on their upwardly mobile climb from South Philly to West Philly to Overbrook Park. Did we do right by him?
Solnit's "Paradise Built in Hell'
When government is the problem
Do natural disasters bring out the best or the worst in people? Rebecca Solnit argues that such communal calamities trigger a “civic temperament” in human nature that leads people to shine rather than go for each other's throats— which scares the hell out of political leaders.
Essays
2 minute read
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"You lie!' and the art of insult
Congressman Wilson's insult: One more thing we can learn from the Brits
South Carolina's Congressman Joe Wilson has drawn both condemnation and praise for shouting, “You lie!” during President Obama's recent speech about health care. But Wilson is an amateur next to members of Britain's Parliament.
Essays
2 minute read
The playground basketball cure
An urban basketball tale: Taking the cure at Morningside Park
It's been half a century since I first cured the twitch in my shoulder with a few good games of city playground basketball. It still works for me today, too.
Essays
2 minute read
Writers and publishers in the electronic age
Fear of Kindle: Don't bet against the paper barons
In an age when people can read Proust and Zola on a portable handheld electronic device, is commercial publishing doomed? If so, how will writers make a living? Not to worry, says a veteran author. Publishers will find a strategy that works. They always have.
Essays
5 minute read
One August day in the park
Too hot for basketball
It's almost 100 degrees and too hot for outdoor basketball— or anything else for a senior citizen like me. But on the court I find a kid who might have been me, once upon a time.
Essays
1 minute read