Riding bikes
My front yard: Six bikes, six kids. They stopped for a snack. This all happened without recourse to phones, email, iCal or that linguistic abomination, “playdate.” I’m time traveling.
The shoulders of giants
Back to school is a fresh start, that clean slate with the promise of new lessons and approaches. I wish we could get that clean slate—or smart board these days, I guess—in the great American debate over education reform. We’re heading in the wrong direction, according to one critical report I read recently. It shows […]
Sorkin does CNN for HBO
Here’s another one I’ll watch. He did sports news (“Sports Night”) and succeeded with national politics (“West Wing”) and now Aaron Sorkin will provide his special POV for a series on cable news for HBO. The untitled hour-long drama doesn’t have an air date yet, according to Broadcasting & Cable. The series will portray staffers at a fictional […]
MA in Tolkien
The Mythgard Institute opened this fall as an online academic outpost for the study of all things Tolkien. You can earn an MA in English on J.R.R., with the first diplomas handed out spring of 2014. “Most of all, we hope to provide students with new opportunities to study Tolkien and related works seriously and […]
The first day of school
I wrote about the last day of school in one of my early Pelham Patch columns back in June. I would never attempt one on the first day of school after reading the piece by the late Mike Levine linked below. The editor and writer got it so right that his column was re-posted by his paper, The […]
Dyslexia saves the writer
Lost for what to do after my first mystery manuscript received eight nice rejection letters from crime editors and my agent decided to get her MBA and enter venture capital (I still wonder if it was my writing that caused this), I enrolled in the Writer’s Studio back in 1997. Joining the New York-based workshop run out […]
Tinker, tailor, soldier, spy
“Tinker, Tailor, Solider, Spy” is one of the great twisty spy thrillers, about thinking and betrayal rather than booms and bangs. I was worried a new version would pale in comparison to the British mini-series, or die on the vine of period-piece dustiness. Not so, says this first review, from THR. I can’t wait to […]
Step right up
I marked the end of summer the same way I did as a kid, with a trip last week to the Dutchess County Fair in Rhinebeck. I’ve been to the giant Ohio State Fair, and our own New York edition in Syracuse, and I can promise that you don’t need to go any farther then […]
Refrigerator boxes
I’m not a believer in signs and portents, that is, signs and portents in this, the real world. Nothing has ever happened to me that told me what was to come, or even gave me a hint I was heading in anywhere like the right direction. Mine is a plain old world. It’s probably why […]
I can’t wait for this one
Watch the first teaser trailer for The Hunger Games. – via io9.com