Living Madly: The Shortest Day By Emilie-Noelle Provost You hear a lot about seasonal affective disorder this time of year. Many people find the lack of sunlight depressing, but I don’t mind December’s dark days. I love how quiet our neighborhood is after the sun sets. No one is outside…
The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons-Barron’s own blog. The holiday season signals a time for relaxation, fewer meetings, fewer blogs, and more time for friends, movies and reading. Here are some recent offerings in the latter category. The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell, author of Hamnet, draws again on…
Boarding School Blues: Chapter 49 By Louise Peloquin Ch. 49: “C’est si bon” After hugging her mother, dropping her Samsonite into the trunk and sliding into the Plymouth, Blanche sighed “si contente d’aller chez nous (so happy to go home).” Maman smiled. “Les petits (the little ones) are anxious to…
The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons-Barron’s own blog. Whew! Senator Raphael Warnock was reelected to the United States Senate, giving the Democrats a 51-49 margin. But wait! Arizona’s Kyrsten Sinema, concerned about holding her seat in 2024, just switched from Democrat to Independent. So the numbers…
Much has been written about the US ouster from the World Cup last Saturday with opinions ranging from “this was a great result considering all the circumstances” to “this was a squandered opportunity.” As a novice soccer fan, I hesitate to state an opinion, but it seemed that the US,…
The Spirit of Uncle Arthur at Christmas By Charles Gargiulo I remember reading somewhere that a great songwriter is somebody who can say more in just a couple of lines than most people can say about the same subject if they talked all night about it. If that’s the case,…
Nativity By Malcolm Sharps She didn’t audition for the part specifically; she didn’t need to. The instant Keith saw Katie at the casting rehearsal he knew that she, and only she, could play the vital, crucial, essential role of Mary in his Nativity. She was a natural Mary, the ideal…
Earlier this week, radio station WBUR presented an audio essay on the fuzzy origins of Chinese pie. The story included interviews with several notable French-Canadian historians and cultural observers from around New England including our own Paul Marion. A link to the audio of the piece plus a full transcript…
The United States team lost to the Netherlands yesterday at the start of the “knockout” round. At least the Americans made it into that group. They did so by defeating a tough team from Iran on Tuesday afternoon by a score of 1 to 0. The Americans dominated the start…
You Don’t Belong Here: How Three Women Rewrote the Story of War by Elizabeth Becker Review by Richard Howe In the final chapter of her excellent book, You Don’t Belong Here, Elizabeth Becker writes that in 2015 she traveled to Cambodia to testify in war crime trials for some surviving…