Professor Carol
Ordinarily I do not write about performances, especially ones held far away from most of our readers. But an experience that came to me unexpectedly last week still glows in my heart, so I’d like to share it. Finding myself called to lecture on a … Read more
Looking across the Danube through sheets of rain at the creamy façade and dark dome of Budapest’s Parliament, I shake my head in amazement. I did not expect to be in Budapest this week, sitting before my room’s picture window in the Castle Hilton, a … Read more
If you read this digest regularly, you know my essays tend to cluster around topics in the arts, history, language, and culture. Today, though, I have a question about technology, albeit a weird one. Still, I hope someone can answer it. The question concerns something … Read more
As if Holy Week were not intense enough, a new ingredient is shaping my thoughts today. Truth be told it’s not new but, rather, has gained more of a “fine point” in recent days. In short, I’ve located the exact birth city of my maternal … Read more
I’ve reached that final moment of editing a book—the one where the text manifests as a living breathing person and starts slugging me in the face. — Richard Due That’s a pretty good description of editing—at least the kind I like best wherein the author, … Read more
Only yesterday did I realize that one of my favorite “Russian” artists was Ukrainian. While Tatiana Yablonska died at age 88 in Kyiv (Kiev) after an illustrious career, her birthplace was Smolensk, an ancient city founded in the 11th century during the period known as … Read more
It was time to stretch . . . and so we did. We have created a Second Edition of Discovering Music. For our wonderful customers who have used our signature course since its birth in 2009, worry not! The outline of 17 units covering the … Read more
We should live on earth like a wheel turns: it touches the earth only at one little point, while all the rest of it ceaselessly rushes upward; but we, how we lie down on the earth and cannot get up! — Ambrose of Optina It is … Read more
I read with interest about the death of Jan Piénkowski, illustrator, author, and master-designer of pop-up books. None of his books yet stands on our grandkids’ shelves, but two are on their way: Tales from Poland and a Necklace of Raindrops, ordered after reading his … Read more
Plot Summaries are useful, aren’t they, especially in a pinch, like: “I didn’t finish this month’s book-club selection, but still want to participate in the discussion.” Yet the dangers posed by the “plot summary” percolates in my mind due to a recent conversation with a … Read more