January 2012
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Dr. M. (at the spacious Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC, to a guard); "Can you tell me how to get to the new American Wing." Guard: "You go straight ahead, through the main courtyard, through two more doors, when you hit Egypt, you take a left."
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I have a sour relationship with "the stage" — and especially with staged Shakespeare plays. The theatre and I just don't get along. I think it's because my expectations are too grand. When I go to the theatre, I want to be ravished, but more often I'm bored, or worse than bored, embarrassed. I long…
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One high noon, many years ago, when I was myself barely fledged, and was an undergraduate at a "large Eastern university," I spotted three well-known members of the humanities faculty on the hunt for lunch. They were Ephim Fogel, David Grossvogel, and Don Kleine. An unforgettable assemblage! Fogel, Grossvogel and Kleine, I thought — sounds…
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What is a currawong? a gonolek, a boubou, a tchagra, a brubru? a sitella, a minivet? a drongo? a common koel? Do you think that I've invented these words? Heck no. Each one is absolutely genuine and furthermore, far beyond my powers of invention. And from the same large family come the zitting cisticola, the…
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This year's Nuggets are now at 3-2 and each game has been worth watching. Because there are no superstars, there's a different plot every game. The ball moves and doesn't stop as when, in the old day, it came into the hands of Carmelo, or, even worse, The Answer. Everyone plays defense; everyone runs, almost…