Olé! (You need to watch the clip to get it.)

I just watched this very interesting clip on creativity by Elizabeth Gilbert, author of the runaway bestseller Eat, Pray, Love on TED.com through a link from Amanda Soule’s web site, SouleMama.  In it, she suggests that perhaps people aren’t creative geniuses themselves, but that they have creative genius(es) inside of them.  Thought I would share… [...]

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Another way to expand your vocabulary

Though the company has been around for quite some time, in the last year, marketing of Rosetta Stone language software has exploded.  Once confined to the pages of airline (“SkyMall”) magazines, advertisements for Rosetta Stone products are now on television and radio, in print media, and on Internet banners.  The makers of Rosetta Stone tout [...]

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NeMLA Panel on Jane Austen and the Contemporary World

The Cult of Celebrity

Anne Hathaway in the film “Becoming Jane”

Last Saturday I attended, with pleasure, the NeMLA panel on “Jane Austen and the Contemporary World” where presentations and discussion ranged from the endless and ongoing film adaptations and reinterpretations of Jane Austen works, to contemporary meta-fiction — all the novels, blogs, etc. that pick up [...]

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Momentum Monday: Book Organization

Over the weekend, my father was kind enough to install twelve more feet of bookcase space in my bedroom, with an additional four feet to come. 
 
 
When he jokingly asked if I would be using the Dewey Decimal System to arrange the shelf contents, I remembered an unopened purchase I had sitting in a downstairs [...]

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Wednesday: Annotated Biblio-blography

Farewell Updike
Here’s what I love about Boston. For the last two days in a row, the “BREAKING NEWS” appearing on The Boston Globe’s website Boston.com has been literature and arts related. I do not love that both of these stories have to do with significant loss.  
Tuesday’s “Breaking News:” Notice of John Updike’s death with rapid response [...]

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Soundtrack for Success

Most of us have soundtracks, favorite albums, playlists for various activities such as working out at the gym, running, driving, cleaning up the kitchen, falling asleep, etc. Surely, without my iPod booming I would probably slack off even more than I already do on the treadmill; Kanye West’s “Stronger” just helps me run faster, harder, [...]

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Weekend: Battlestar Galactica Premier

Yes, one of us on this site is a bit of a sci-fi junky — but a junky with standards nonetheless. Case in  point: the Sci Fi Channel series Battlestar Galactica (BSG for insiders), currently running its final season (not to be confused with the original series from the 1970s and ’80s which I also [...]

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Annotated Biblio-blography: 12/31/08

Out with the old…
I recently gained some insight into the personality of outgoing President George W. Bush after watching the 2003 documentary by Alexandra Pelosi (yes, Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s youngest daughter) Journeys With George, which chronicled the then-candidate on the trail in 2000.  Last month, Stanley Fish made some interesting predictions about the future of [...]

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Books for the holidays

Recently, a friend told me that books were “undesirable gifts” and likened the experience to “receiving socks for Christmas.”  Really?  For as long as I can remember, books have been at the top of my list for both gift giving and receiving.
I am guessing that many of our readers also share my inclinations.
Here is [...]

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Happy Birthday, Milton!

Today marks (what would be) the 400th birthday of John Milton.  Would you believe that I braved the arctic temperatures to attend an outdoor reading of “On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity” this morning at dawn over at Harvard?  In all, there were about 30 people in attendance, and we each read a stanza of [...]

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