A genius in constructing gags, a man well ahead of his time in understanding how to manipulate the technology of cinema to tell a joke, and almost the polar opposite of Charlie Chaplin in terms of sentimentality….
This post is pure plagiarism, but not because I’m lazy or because today, for us Orthodox, it’s Christmas and I’m breaking the fast in some extraordinarily time-consuming, lamb-devouring, deck-the-halls way.
I have been making Manzo Brasato (Braised Beef Lombard Style) for well over thirty years. My original recipe source, a book I still consult regularly, was Ada Boni’s Regional Italian Cooking.
In the old dormitory bull sessions, if the subject of happiness came up, someone would be sure to use the old trope of the contented cow in the pasture. The cow certainly experienced something like pleasure, but could a rational human being agree with the cow?
Several decades ago, we discovered an Italian version in Luciano Bugialli’s excellent The Fine Art of Italian Cooking, which is actually a book on Florentine cuisine.
Three quite different poems on the New Year, by Richard Wilbur, Kenneth Patchen, and Lord Tennyson
The child is only four, but neighbors are already beginning to ask why he isn’t in school.
On June 5, 1999 in Washington, D.C. I spoke at a demonstration, near the Vietnam War memorial, of many thousands of people protesting President Clinton’s decision to bomb Serbia.
It has been said that there can be no true Christian tragedy, because even in the midst of death, there is always the possibility of a happy ending in the next world. This is to misconceive both the nature of tragedy and the nature of the Christian faith.
