Blogs
Opening the Kimono: Thoughts on the Language(s) of the Business World, Part One
Let me say at the outset that I have never worked in a large company. But I do love language, and am fortunate enough to be married to a woman who is an executive in the corporate consulting world. Through her post trip debriefings, I have become fascinated with the...Opening the Kimono, Thoughts on the Language(s) of the Business World, Part Two
Editor’s Note: Last week’s post was part one of this essay, which described the opaque jargon of the business world. But let’s now turn away from the language of proactive solution modeling and cross-silo synergies to a much earthier language equally...Is “Warrior” the Right Word?
For years, I have faithfully read the Proceedings of the United States Naval Institute. Published since 1874 as a professional forum for the Navy and Marine Corps, it is neither required nor typical reading for a self-respecting member of the Boston professional...Eating in the Cold
Access to food or the land to grow it on has often been a weapon used to assure the poverty of a subjugated populace. Think of the Irish, the Native Americans, or the North Koreans. But we live in a time of immense surpluses of food in the developed world. We in the...Preparing for Winter, Nineteenth Century Westhampton Style
Editor’s Note: Compelled to learn more about how people survived New England winters before electricity, central heating, and supermarkets, I asked Barbara Pelissier, the president of the Westhampton Historical Society and Vice Chair of the Pioneer Valley...Scaling the Heights: Art of the White Mountains at the MFA
Though it remains something less than common knowledge, Massachusetts and New Hampshire played a decisive role in the birth and development of American painting. Massachusetts landscapists Thomas Doughty and Alvan Fisher were the first American artists to trade...Cede the Floor No More: The Berkshire Festival of Women Writers
One of the hallmarks of homo sapiens is that we love to tell each other stories. Our sophisticated use of language is one of the reasons we have been so successful as a species—we have been able to pass on valuable knowledge down the generations, building...See, Hear, Feel Film at Amherst Cinema
It’s a familiar routine, one that doesn’t necessarily inspire pride: I come downstairs most mornings to see my eight-year-old huddled on the couch under a blanket, comfortable and happy, giggling away as he fritters away the first half hour of his day,...On Writing Letters
For years I wrote letters. “Have you ever heard of The Collected Phone Calls of Gertrude Stein?” Rita Mae Brown says in Starting from Scratch. “Writers should learn to write letters and save the telephone for business.” I took her words to...Archivists, Immigrants, and Oral History
You’ve probably heard the verb “to archive.” Maybe you’ve visited an archival repository like the Smithsonian or the National Archives. But did you know that archivists are a profession–a group of specialized librarians who curate,...Droning on about Drones: Rand Paul's Filibuster Bluster and Reality
In case you missed his 13 hour filibuster of John O. Brennan’s nomination to be the next CIA Director, on the night of March 6th/7th Kentucky Senator Rand Paul made himself the darling of both the Tea Party/Libertarians and those on the right who fear that the...Jaimy Gordon and John Murillo to Read at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown on Saturday
Horseracing, like hip-hop, is a culture, entirely of its own. Each is formed on the edges of society, producing a rhythm balanced by struggle and persistence. And each, uncovered, reveals an explosion of unexpected power and potential. These are two largely...Marriage Lessons from the Funeral Home
My uneasy feelings about marriage became even more complicated this past November when I got the call that no one wants to get. “He didn’t make it.” The police officer was telling me that John, my partner of 12 years, had died in a car accident in...Margaret Thatcher's Caricatured Career
The first woman leader of a twentieth-century Western superpower died on Monday, April 8 at the age of 87. A conservative politician having been trained at Oxford as a chemist, Margaret Thatcher was a woman who described herself in uncompromising terms: “I am...An American Storyteller in Ghana
In January this year I went to Ghana in West Africa for three weeks. I am a professional storyteller and I perform many kinds of stories including folktales and historical stories for children and adults. Sometimes the desire to collect folktales instead of just...Where Poetry and Plot Meet
It’s National Poetry Month, and while we could drink our way through an entire month of pure poetic delight without the well ever running dry, we (whisper) might not want to stop reading stories. Or, we might feel more at ease reading stories. Poems might be for...An American Storyteller in Ghana, Part 2
[Part One appeared previously] When we left Kumasi, we were already tired of traveling in our hot van, but we were still two or three days away from our next major destination of Sirigu, in the north. By the time we arrived there, we had traversed all of Ghana from...Making Media Now Conference on Friday!
Filmmakers Collaborative, a national media industry leader and fiscal sponsor, is hosting its acclaimed MAKING MEDIA NOW (MMN) conference on Friday, May 3 at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston. MAKING MEDIA NOW’s challenge-the-assumptions...Johnny Got His Gun: Thoughts on Art, War, and Community
Arts writer Phillipa Pitts recently contributed a blog column that resonated with me; here’s an excerpt: Art plays many roles in society and, at different times, can speak to issues in areas such as religion, science, politics, and history. Whether introducing...At the Table
Last Friday night, I went out to eat at Bela in Northampton. I got there early on my trike, so I leaned on it and watched from a little way down the sidewalk as people went in. Bela is a small, warm vegetarian restaurant with lovely food, and I’ve had some...Community, Ethics, Emulation and Terrorism
Patriot’s Day and the Boston Marathon celebrate American values and resilience, which were tested on April 15, 2013. Many people in Boston felt violated by those bombs, but, ultimately, the terrorists lost, not because they were killed/captured relatively...Antigone in Boston
I was a Creon until I realized that it put me against Antigone. Now I’m not so sure. Last week, listening to public radio, I heard about the protests against the burial of Tamerlan Tsarnaev. I nodded in agreement as various voices denounced the alleged Boston...Sorting the Books, Part 1
It’s that time again. If you read, if you have a weakness for shiny stacks of paperbacks in airports, or the carousel of sale books at the library—they’re only a dollar!—then you know what happens. You stack a few sideways in the space between...CIA “Signature Drone Strikes” and the Killing of Americans Abroad
On May 22nd Attorney General Eric Holder announced that the CIA has carried out the extrajudicial drone assassination of four Americans since 2009 (when one includes the one American killed by a drone in Yemen in 2002 that brings the number to five US citizens who...To Drone or Not to Drone
The topic that excited most comment in President Obama’s May 23rd speech is the restrictions on the use of drones to carry out targeted killings. Those both strongly in favor of the use of drones and those strongly against it criticized the speech. The former...Spring at Mount Auburn Cemetery
In the spring of 1997 I moved to Massachusetts and began graduate studies in studio art, film and photography at Harvard University Extension. A few days after finding an apartment in Cambridge, I began exploring my new “neighbor,” Mount Auburn–a...Forbidden Fictions
My husband is teaching a class called “Forbidden Fictions” this summer, to a self-selected group of high school almost-seniors. One of his first thoughts: “This might be the only opportunity I ever get to teach Lolita to high school students.”...To Nelson Mandela, my favorite college professor
A political prisoner changed my life. That man, now free — always free, really — wore number 466 at Robben Island prison in South Africa. Today, he is slowly dying in a hospital bed in Pretoria. I know Nelson Mandela won’t have the opportunity to...Brockton from the Eyes of its Youth
If you walk along Main Street in Brockton’s downtown, you will see huge photographs, printed on banners and hanging from buildings. They were made by Brockton teens as part of the City of Champions: Youth Vision in Context project. “It’s like an...The Academy Unleashes a 1940s Scandal
Tucked away under the Academy Front of House Manager’s make-shift desk, in a worn cardboard letter box filled with dated documents and letters, slept a story, an Academy of Music story from 1940 that centered around a strong-willed, spirited woman, named Mildred...Hidden Gems of History at “Fabergé Revealed”
As we enter the dimly lit room, adorned with family portraits and photographs, Orthodox icons glowing on walls, a frisson of mixed excitement and sadness engulfs me. Here, at hand, are fragments from a historical saga which has haunted my imagination since childhood....“War has a long reach”
I write this in the margin of my packet of readings for the Literature & Medicine session on the theme of memories. The packet includes poems by U.S. veterans and an Iraqi poet, a short story by a Vietnamese writer, and a piece from the Massachusetts Review...Painting in Verbs: Rediscovering the Art and Teaching of Charles H. Woodbury
“The attempt to see in a large way is the point. Your studies are not of much importance, but you cannot overvalue the mental effort.” “Seeing big” is what Lynn-born painter Charles H. Woodbury drummed into the more than 4,000 students who...Power of Place
Mary, age 95, a former opera singer and world traveler, currently a resident of Golden Living Center in Gloucester, enters the Cape Ann Museum (CAM) on a summer Tuesday morning. Along with Annie, Richie, two staff from Golden Living, and three museum program...Tea, Strawberries, and Spirits
The religious movement known as “Spiritualism” permeated nineteenth-century life, growing so rapidly that, by 1869, Emma Hardinge [Britten](1823–1899), historian of the first two decades of the religion, estimated that there were eleven million...America as the 21st Century “Elysium” (an Afghan Comparison)
I first began traveling to Afghanistan soon after the 2001 liberation of the country from the Taliban and, despite the extreme dangers, poverty, and lack of development, came to love this war torn land and her people. My journeys there gave me tremendous insight into...The Branding of the American Gun Issue
There are legitimate doubts about whether the watered down gun related legislation recently proposed would have had a significant effect on gun violence. But surely its abject failure has at least one cause that is not much mentioned. When I hear National Public...Robert Frost in Russia
This past June, Franklin D’Olier Reeve, the husband of my favorite college professor, Laura Stevenson, died. I learned this, weirdly, from a Facebook friend who lives in Russia. He posted a link to Franklin’s obituary in the New York Times, which I suggest...August Wilson's 20th Century
“Hold up. You’re not done yet,” the woman in the corner told August. “Who are you?” August asked, blinking. “My name is Vera, and I belong in that story you’re telling,” she said. “That play is about me. You got it...Lighting a Spark with Fahrenheit 451
With the 2012 passing of American novelist Ray Bradbury and the sixtieth anniversary of the publication of his dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451 in 2013, the time was right to return to his most famous work and use it as a starting point to discuss society, technology,...“The Mullahs are Not My Audience”
Sir Salman Rushdie has come to stand, in almost clichéd ways, for freedom of speech: we may agree with him or not, but we want to defend his right to say it. But should we agree? I am not a reader of Rushdie novels, of which the style is usually more...Slavery no Featherweight
I wasn’t going far, just one stop. On my way out of the door of the red line train, I was astonished. A large white feather was in my path. It seemed very much out of place. It was dazzling in its whiteness, very long, pristine. The quill was robust. The kind,...E Pluribus Paralysis
If a faction consists of less than a majority, relief is supplied by the republican principle, which enables the majority to defeat its sinister views by regular vote. It may clog the administration, it may convulse the society; but it will be unable to execute and...Mass Humanities Grants Support New Plaques on Abolitionist History in Northampton
New historic markers at Northampton sites related to the abolitionist history of the city have been erected in three sites, made possible in part by a grant from Mass Humanities. The fruition of this project follows on the heels of an extensive research process, which...Southern Sweetness, Light and Dark
A whole new vista, unexpected but clear, opened up as I sat next to and conversed with Dr. Wisdom on a border-crossing shuttle, going from Alabama to Georgia the first weekend in November. There we were, sitting side by side as we pulled out of Auburn heading for...Massachusetts Holiday Programming Round-up
Massachusetts abounds with fun and picturesque family destinations, and many of them get gussied up for the holidays, throw parties, open houses, and create special creative opportunities for children to make things in festive settings. Spread some holiday cheer in...Ten Great Snow Painters
“Out of the bosom of the Air,/Out of the cloud-folds of garments shaken,/Over the woodlands brown and bare,/Over the harvest-fields forsaken,/Silent, and, soft, and slow/ Descends the snow.” – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1902) As...The Dark Secret Behind the Sochi Olympics: Russia's Efforts to Hide a Tsarist Era Genocide
As a Bostonian who was watching the race on April 15th 2013 that was marred by the senseless act of terrorism carried out by two Chechen-Dagestani-Americans which killed three people, I had a sickening sense of de ja vu as I watched recent media reports of as many as...¡Carnival!
Epiphany, or King’s Day passed on January 6, and Lent will commence on Ash Wednesday, March 5—that’s the day after Fat Tuesday—the festival’s climax, the last day for gluttony and excess before one gives up something “of the...Creating Theatre Espresso's Interactive Play Secret Soldiers: Women Who Fought in the Civil War
As a writer of historical plays, I collect articles, books, and primary source documents. Some materials are used immediately; others will never see the light of day. Occasionally, these resources resurface years later. Such was the case with a thin book I purchased...The Berkshire Festival of Women Writers Combats Cultural Mono-cropping with a Diversity of Women's Voices
In my classes this spring at Bard College at Simon’s Rock, I have been exploring the fruitful overlap between the humanities and environmental studies. Specifically, in a class entitled “Women Write the World,” we are reading a series of literary...Small Pies
Editor’s Note: A few weeks ago, my husband Mark Roessler wrote a food piece for The Valley Advocate on the meat pies sold at the newish bakery on Main Street, Northampton, Tart. The son of two Australians and someone who has been to Australia and England a...Showcasing 20 Years of Programming: MCC's YouthReach
In 2000 Berkshire County Juvenile Court Justice Paul Perachi approached Kevin Coleman and his colleagues at Shakespeare & Co. in Lenox with a bold idea. The judge, a former high school principal, had seen Shakespeare & Co.’s success with his students....Vladimir Putin's War against Free Speech
Remember Dick Cheney insisting it wasn’t torture to pour water over a man’s face in such a way that he thinks he is drowning? President George Bush, Jr., proclaiming “mission accomplished”? Embedded news correspondents filing enthusiastic...Nitwits of 1963-ers?
“The training will be good for those nitwits.” I winced, but said nothing, then mulled over my silence and “nitwits” for weeks. The speaker was describing the 2-hours of required harassment training for the electrical maintenance department at...Olmsted and America
Editor’s Note: Frederick Law Olmsted: Designing America, a film by Lawrence Hott and Diane Garey, premieres at the Northampton Academy of Music on Sunday, April 13, 4 PM. At the editor’s request, the film’s writer Ken Chowder contributed the...The Dark Matter of Moral Injury
By now most every American is painfully aware of the runaway suicide rate in the military, averaging 33 suicides per month in 2012, roughly one every seventeen hours. Even this number—representing confirmed suicides among active duty troops—falls far short...The Worcester Revolution of 1774 Project Brings Historical Agencies from Central MA to Celebrate the First American Revolution
In the summer of 1774 yeoman farmers, craftsmen and other members of the colonial middle classes throughout Central Massachusetts became incensed at their government–the Royal Parliament of Great Britain. Their actions would spark one of the largest political...How Russian Nationaism is at Odds with an Increasingly Global World
Under the pretext of saving ethnic Russians, Vladimir Putin has been making headlines recently for his aggressive takeover of the Crimea and impending invasion of Eastern Ukraine. As a result, the United States and Europe have threatened increasingly severe economic...E-Edition
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