The People and Places Behind Monopoly It’s a scene I’m sure we’ve all experienced at least once in our lifetimes – the bleary-eyed, five-hour game of “Monopoly” that was going just great until some jerk bough Park Place and built a hotel. Or the agony of landing on “Go To Jail” four times in one […]
Pencils and Pop Culture: Zombies Shall Inherit the Earth I will fully admit that I am squeamish when it comes to anything related to horror films. Vampires, ghosts, zombies, things that go bump in the night – all grist for the mill in my far-too-overactive imagination. So I will be the first to admit that […]
Quincy Jones: What Makes a Legend? March 14 was the 79th birthday of legendary producer and composer Quincy Jones. In his decades-spanning career, Jones has been the driving force behind some of the most memorable music of the 20th century. He produced the iconic Michael Jackson album “Thriller,” scored seven Academy Award nominations, 27 Grammy […]
Traces of History: Pencils and the Suffrage Movement My earliest heroes were the women behind the United States suffrage movement. Susan B. Anthony, Carrie Chapman Catt, Julia Ward Howe and Lucy Stone weren’t just stuffy figures in a history book to me; they were strong, fearless and intelligent women who showed me that every woman […]
Pencils and Pop Culture: Who Will Take the Project Runway All-Star Title? Tomorrow night is the season finale of “Project Runway: All-Stars,” which has pitted outstanding designers from nine seasons of “Project Runway” in a winner-takes-all competition. The past ten weeks of competition have seen challenges that ranged from designing a gown for a night […]
Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss! Is there a children’s book author more universally beloved than Dr. Seuss? Some would posit J.K. Rowling surpasses the Seuss in terms of universal adoration, but I would argue that Rowling does not write children’s books – they are more of the young adult vein. Many Seuss stories like “The Cat […]
Pencils and Pop Culture: The Year of the Pencil Earlier this year, Kat Brown of Night and Day, The Spectator’s Arts and Culture magazine, called 2012 “The Year of the Pencil” (Be warned, the sketch at the top of the page is probably NSFW). Yes, it would appear that 2012 was the year that the […]
Pencils and Pop Culture: Martinis with a Dash of Blackwing It’s the cocktail of Bond, James Bond, and swell sophisticates everywhere. The signature glass, with its slender stem and geometrically simple bowl, make it as fun to look at as it is to drink. While debates over ingredients and proportions have raged for years, it’s […]
Breakfast at Tiffany’s and the Man Who Made an Icon By far the most iconic image in the film adaptation of “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” is of Audrey Hepburn as Holly Golightly, strolling down 5th Avenue in the early, empty hours of the morning in a long black evening gown. As she pauses in front of […]
Pencils and Pop Culture: The Oscars is Fixing What Isn’t Broken I have a love-hate relationship with the Oscars. On the one hand, my family and I throw an Oscar party every year, as we will do at end of this month when the awards air on February 26. We like the pageantry, the shared […]
