“We Need To Talk About Kevin”
“We Need to Talk About Kevin” opens in movie theaters nationwide but there isn’t a movie theater within 50 miles of Hartford, Connecticut showing the film, and it’s not because the film is ‘bad.” In fact, the movie review site, Rotten Tomatoes gave the film an 81% and the nearly 10,000 reviewers that have already seen it (as there was a limited release on Jan 13, 2012) gave the movie an even higher rating – 86%. So, why isn’t the movie opening up in every movie theater across America? Read more 
“In The Garden of Beasts”
Berlin has always captivated me because it was the first European city where I could see and feel the remnants from World War II and the Cold War. The capital city isn’t known for its climate, especially in the winter when the weather can be harsh, the sky grey, and the days short but the weather is all but forgotten when walking through the streets because Berlin is really a dichotomy thanks to a series of events: World War II and the 28-year existence of the Berlin Wall which was torn down to the cheers of crowds in 1989. Read more
Remembering Marjorie Williams
Seven years ago, the world lost a great writer named Marjorie Williams who died at age 47 from liver cancer leaving behind a husband and two young children, ages 11 and 8. At the time of her death, Williams was an op-ed columnist with the Washington Post and a frequent contributor to Vanity Fair where she primarily wrote political profiles – not your typical rose smelling or hatchet job profiles but portraits that zeroed in on the character beyond what the image machine created. Somehow Williams managed to figure out what was at the core of a being – what drove him or her – and deftly tied in all the minutiae in their universe to show the reader who the person really was in an entertaining but truthful way. Read more
“To End All Wars”
“Mental Floss”
We all have our favorite magazines and mourn those that are no longer published (Life) or changed (Newsweek) while continuing to look for new choices. My favorite magazine is “The New Yorker” for two reasons: the cartoons are hilarious; and the stories are immensely enjoyable to read because the writing is so damn good. Every week when The New Yorker arrives, I get giddy – similar to how I feel when I receive a new book or open a box with a new pair of running shoes. But as much as I enjoy “The New Yorker,” I am always on the lookout for the next interesting magazine which is how I found “Mental Floss.” Read more
“Once Upon A Time There Was You”
Years ago (2003), when we were living in Madrid, I read a human interest story in the weekend edition of The International Herald Tribune about a father who was losing his daughter – not to death but to the unavoidable journey of growing up. At eighteen, she was leaving to go off to college, a parting he found very painful. He expressed his anguish in a poem by Cecil Day Lewis called “Walking Away:”
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“Sarah’s Key”
The Apple of Our Eye….Steve Jobs
Blue Nights
Several years ago, after my 14-year old golden retriever died, a friend gave me a book called “The Magical Year of Thinking” written by Joan Didion. The book is about the sudden death of Didion’s husband and the grief she experienced: reliving the last few days, imagining different outcomes, and sometimes pretending the loss isn’t real, that it was all a bad dream. As time goes by, the reader realizes that time doesn’t heal all wounds; time just makes the wound more bearable. And, although the loss of a beloved pet cannot be compared to the loss of a partner, “The Magical Year of Thinking” doesn’t distinguish between types of grief. Grief is grief no matter how you experience it. Read more
Road Trips Made Bearable
Road trips can be monotonous, boring, and long – and if there are kids or teenagers in the car, a road trip is about as much fun as organizing a high school reunion. So, the challenge is how to make a road trip bearable and the answer is to stop along the way to tour a factory and learn how something is made. Read more
Paddock Post 