“No hats on the bed!” A woman screams at a visitor. “Get that hat off the bed! Now!” “OK,” says the man. “But, by the way, why? Why must I take my hat off the bed?” “Hats on the bed are bad luck! Terrible bad luck! Years and years of
A buddy of mine explained the likelihood of getting a book of poems published. Consider all money spent in entertainment industry. Movies make up the vast percentage of expenditures; books are almost an afterthought. Of all the books that are published each year, most are non-fiction–calendars, cooks books, political biographies.
Bob Blitzer wasn’t just a great math teacher; he was a good man: my first openly gay professor–and this was the early 70s–he was a force of nature in the classroom. He drew an inverted parabola on the board. “‘Y equals negative X squared’ looks like a missile,” he began.
1) My six year-old daughter is having a birthday. What should I do? 2) My 14 year-old daughter loves animals, wants to see a bear in the wild. What should I do? 3) My 16 year-old son is the third chair out of three trumpet players in the school orchestra.
I’ve never asked Dennis and Joanie for money. But I could if I had to. If I couldn’t make a mortgage payment, I’d ask them for a couple thousand to tide me over and they’d say, “You’re sure you don’t need more?” That’s how close we are. That’s the kind
Here’s a controversial sentence I bet you didn’t think you’d read in a column written by a person who studied developmental psychology in graduate school, has dedicated his life to education, and makes his living giving advice to parents about how to bring up healthy kids. For many neurotypical kids,
Pretty much everybody needs a little help deconstructing texts. It could be argued that the point of college is to learn how to read and understand Chaucer, Milton, Pope, and Shakespeare. Of course non-English majors learn how to understand different authors and ideas–Machiavelli for economics majors, Watson and Crick for
Why don’t your children listen? Here’s one possible answer: Maybe your kids are bad. Why not? It’s possible. Maybe deep down, they are just plain and simple, intrinsically B-A-D, bad, budding little rotten to the core psychopaths who, left to their own devices, would deliberately with malice of forethought, just
There’s a story about Abraham Lincoln growing up dirt poor–wanting to study but not having enough money to buy candles which would allow him to read after the sun went down. Gas lamps were also out of the budget and Mr. Edison’s electric lights were a generation away. So instead
Do any of the following monologues sound even remotely plausible? Is there a syllable of truth in any of them? The speakers are men aged 70, 10, and 40 respectively. 1) “I know what I’ll do. I’ll wake up this morning and pretend that I can’t hear. That way, my
Copyright © David Altshuler 1980 – 2022 | Miami, FL • Charlotte, NC | (305) 978-8917 | [email protected]
