There are many ways to gauge a film’s legacy: critical tributes, best-of lists, online ratings — not to mention Oscars and a host of other honors. As a lifelong reader, I like to ask how many books have been written about (or inspired by) the movie. Until this year, I thought the record-holder was Psycho
“Jingle Bells.” “Silver Bells.” “Carol of the Bells.” “I Heard the Bells….” Hmm — are you noticing a pattern here? Yes, along with angels, shepherds, stars and kings, bells seems to be a favored motif in holiday music. And if you want to hear what Edgar Allan Poe so fetchingly called “the tintinnabulation that so
In 1989 Keanu Reeves, Alex Winter and George Carlin starred in a low-rent time-travel comedy called Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure. Making a virtual institution out of slacker-dude subculture — and providing an indelible lesson in how not to pronounce “Socrates” — the surprise hit generated two B&T sequels: Bogus Journey (1991) and Face the
Last week, Webb’s Weird Words trotted out one of our standard oddball vocabulary lists — this one including succedanea (suck-suh-DAY-nee-yuh). The plural form of a noun meaning “substitute” — especially a replacement medicine — it’s perhaps best known from a brief appearance in Samuel Beckett’s tragicomedy Waiting for Godot. Now more than 70 years old,
Saturday, November 8, was a gorgeous day of sun, warmth and fiery foliage; but I spent most that time inside my church — attending a conference on domestic abuse. Beside me lay a brochure confirming that one in three women will experience this trauma — and that it’s “just as prevalent within faith communities.” Regular
