Suprise Me

Comedy, for me, is reified in the Animal Crackers scene when madcap Captain Spaulding (Groucho Marx) steps away from staid Mrs. Rittenhouse (Margaret Dumont) and  Mrs. Whitehead (Margaret Irving) saying: “Pardon me while I have a strange interlude.”  You know, recently I’ve favored cremation over burial, but burial’s preferable if I can have Groucho’s line carved… Read More

In preparing him, Dad emphasized, “Jake, they don’t want to know your philosophy on life. They want to know what you would do as a driver in different situations.” J Read More

And Things That Go Bump in the Night It’s been one week since we started our unplanned Covid 19 quarantine/staycation and I’m still reeling with the disbelief and the worry.  And each day brings news of people we know or of well-known personalities who’ve been affected. Yesterday we learned of the coronavirus-related death at 81… Read More

In the late sixties I was drawn to a song by British composer Leslie Bricusse, “When I Look in Your Eyes.” The music was haunting, the lyrics discomforting. They spoke of a depth of feeling and life experience I did not have. Sometimes now I’ll hear teens debate the “best” eye color—hazel? blue? green? brown?—or… Read More

What amazes and terrifies me about the role that timing (or is it luck?) has played in my life is how dismayingly often my future has been determined by chance events. So many times, the course of my life has been diverted by what happened – or didn’t – at some random moment.  Planning and… Read More

December, 2003, my first time volunteering for the huge “December Sale” at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts. My friend Barbara Cole Lee chaired this sale which ran over several days during the first week of December. She is a force of nature, brought in significant buyers from the art world and beyond… Read More

The Muslim staff that worked in our house protected the gardener and his Hindu family, temporary refugees in their own land. Read More

Henrietta was an awkward name for a tiny child ... so the family called her Yettie. Read More

All seemed very normal in this town, as long as you stayed in your lane. Read More

"It's a dance. Well, it's a hoedown." Read More