I learned to drive when I was eight months pregnant in Cherry Point, North Carolina. My husband was waiting for our first baby to be born to join his squadron in Okinawa on route to Vietnam. We owned an old, lime-green Rambler then, with the gearshift on the steering wheel and I could barely reach […]

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I get to double dip big time during the holiday season. No, not the way you think; culturally speaking. I love the American tradition of Christmas, but I still celebrate the Three Wise Men’s arrival on January 6th. And when Peter was alive, we also lit the candles at Hanukah. The fact is that I […]

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No wonder I was attracted to the black and white films that I blogged about in my last post, “The Children Are Watching.” I grew up watching Italian neorealist cinema by Federico Fellini and Vittorio De Sica, albeit they were strictly censored by the Franco regime. I used to go with my parents late in […]

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Belfast was the opening film at the recent Philadelphia Film Festival. Directed and written by Kenneth Branagh, it is currently showing on the big screen. Filmed in black and white, it tells the story of Branagh’s childhood in Belfast during 1969 at the beginning of the so-called Troubles in Northern Ireland.  It was impossible for […]

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Philadelphia is one of those cities that still have neighborhoods defined by trade. We have the famous Jewelers’ Row off 8th Street, although some stores have been demolished to make room for a high-rise condominium. Never mind that its construction has been stalled due to the pandemic, leaving an ugly open wound fenced by barbwire. […]

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There are few things that I anticipate more than getting The New Yorker each week and, when it was the “Food and Drink” Issue (September 6, 2021), I found myself reading, tasting and luxuriating all at once. This is “An Archival Issue” that cleverly reprinted exceptional articles from years past within its usual categories. “The […]

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