The Princess Esmerelda was as gracious as she was erudite. Well read, articulate and thoughtful, when she wore her flowing silk robes to affairs of state, her constituents smiled. On her 21st birthday, Esmerelda’s father brought her news of her impending marriage. He had made an alliance, he explained, with
1) In post war Rome, a man comes across a stranger weeping in an alley. “Don’t cry, Friend” he says. “It’s true, our beloved country has been brutally defeated, that the best young men of their generation have been slaughtered, and that we now have no infrastructure to speak of.
Jonathan’s profile is over flowing with modest grades in English, poor verbal test scores. He has never read a book that was not assigned and has overlooked many books that were. His most articulate replies in the classroom are mono-syllabic grunts, yet Jonathan’s college admissions essays are replete with “plethoras,”
Sometimes the hucksters are so mind-numbingly feckless that they contradict themselves in the same paragraph of their hard sell, sales piece. Imagine if someone communicated both of the following statements: “I’m mailing your check today” AND “I’m 200 fathoms deep in a nuclear submarine off the coast of Komsolsky.” “How’s
I could not be more proud of my student, Robbie. From 15 years of age until his 20th birthday, Robbie smoked pot daily, stole from his parents, and lied every time he opened his mouth. In college, his major was being a general pain in the ass. He refused to
No list of “The Greatest Movies of All Time” is complete without including Orson Wells’s 1940 tour de force, “Citizen Kane.” The following dialog seems to predict conversations in my office 71 years after the film was produced: KANE As far as you’re concerned, Susan, I’ve never wanted anything –
Dr. Johnson defined second marriage as “the triumph of hope over experience.” Darren and Isabel were both determined to make it work after disastrous first attempts. But there was a stressor that was tearing them up. Not Isabel’s three needy daughters from her first husband. They were an economic and
Barry and Jonathan’s computer repair and website design business was nearing the end of its five-year run. Their warehouse was small; there was barely room for all the blame that the brothers threw back and forth. The technological entrepreneurs, aged 29 and 30, were angry at themselves and at each
Remember how in The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, one of Douglas Adams’s characters is responsible for summarizing the planet earth? In as few words as possible? Because the encyclopedia for which he writes has limited space? Space is at a premium because there are well over a billion
I now devote myself full time to helping children and their families choose and apply to colleges and working with troubled teens. But for 20 years I ran a tutoring and test prep shop. My friends and I, most of whom I met in graduate school, would help students prepare
Copyright © David Altshuler 1980 – 2024 | Miami, FL • Charlotte, NC | (305) 978-8917 | [email protected]
