In Sergei Eisenstein’s film Battleship Potemkin, that ship’s crew finally rebels over its working conditions, in particular over the food they’re given. They haul a side of beef, writhing with maggots, before the ship’s doctor: “Dr. Smirnov’s eye peering through the doubled pince-nez fills the screen. (Cut to . . . ) “White maggots swarm over the surface of the rotted meat. “Dr. Smirnov’s pince-nez, a blur in one corner
Andy has new sneakers. He holds one leg up so the kids seated at their desks can see the NIKE lettering better. It is Show and Tell time in my first-grade class. I believed Show and Tell was a worthwhile activity for a couple reasons. 1. It gave the children a chance to practice public speaking skills. 2. It gave them a chance to know each other better as they
I just read Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People. It’s one of those books worth exploring for the sake of cultural literacy. I wanted to understand its ongoing popularity, especially since some of my good friends value its message. Now I can at least join the conversation and gain stronger insight into what motivates others. I can see why some critics consider How to Win Friends predatory, analytically thin, and
The first time Benny Goodman heard Bix Beiderbecke play cornet, he recalled, he wondered, “My God, what planet, what galaxy, did this guy come from?” (Skretvedt). Listening to him throughout my life, I’ve had the same feeling. So did hundreds of musicians who heard Bix during his short lifetime, and so have thousands of listeners since. What was it about this musician that captivated and astonished so many for so
“Step on a crack, break your mother’s back,” Ray dutifully reminded himself as he watched his left shoe, and then his right shoe, pass each other on the sidewalk below, looking from his vantage point like compact autos negotiating a tiny two-lane road. If one could even call it that, given a buckling surface strewn with cigarette butts and used tissue papers and rubble – were it a road, heaven
On the night of September 19, 1974, someone murdered the owner of the Suezy Massage Parlor on South Nevada Avenue in Colorado Springs. The owner, Sun Ok Cousin, was the Korean wife of a retired Army man. Her assistant, Elizabeth Yon Cha Lee, a very recent arrival from Korea, was attacked with a knife and left in the building her assailant had set on fire, but she survived. On October
