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American Anthem - Norah Jones
Like most people, I think, I have mixed feelings about Ken Burns's documentary projects. At times, he can seem like the fulfillment of the social consciousness of the 1930's, shining a light on the...
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Mt. Rushmore on Tuesday
I've always been fascinated by Abraham Lincoln's face. The historical figure we know has been the subject of countless dramatizations, elegies, studies and biographies. Had he not been assassinated,...
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Belafonte & The Calypso Sound
Harry Belafonte has held a unique position in American culture for the better part of half a century. Born in Harlem in 1927, his was a special American story, filled with unlikely turns and...
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Monopoly & Capitalism
Several years ago, I had the occasion to meet Ralph Anspach, the inventor of Anti-Monopoly@. We were putting our house on the market, and Anspach and his wife ambled in one Sunday afternoon, more out...
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Upsidedown & Disappearing Fast
The days of postage stamps may be numbered. From what I hear around the U.S. Postal Offices, stamps may soon become obsolete, ending a nearly two century love affair we have had with these lovely...
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Harpsichord with Pluck
Laurette Goldberg a long time agoI couldn't have been more than 15 when I first heard Laurette Goldberg perform. A family friend was managing a little coffee-house on Shattuck Avenue in Berkeley,...
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Howard Hughes
Last month I read a book about Howard Hughes [Hack, Richard. Hughes. The Private Diaries, Memos and Letters. The Definitive Biography of the First American Billionaire. Beverly Hills: New Millennium...
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Mono Mania
Mono Lake is a shallow saline soda (alkali) lake in Mono County, California, on the eastern side of the Sierra, about 120 miles due south by southeast from Lake Tahoe. Because it's completely...
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The Idyll of the Split Bamboo
The Idyl of the Split Bamboo* is the title of a book on angling devoted to the making of bamboo flyfishing rods--not "poles" if you please! An idyll is, according to the dictionary, a simple...
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Einstein on the Beach
There is presently on e.Bay--the familiar web-based online auction site--an auction in progress for an original ALS (Autographed letter signed) by Albert Einstein, written by him (in German) in 1954,...
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Duke's Clothed Woman
The relationship between classical music and American jazz in the first half of the 20th century is in some respects two stories. On the one hand, jazz is seen as a separate indigenous American...
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Down for the Count but Still Battling - Giants in 2012
How does a franchise that loses important parts of its team during a season overcome adversity and triumph against odds? Each professional squad is composed of parts of a puzzle, which may or may not...
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Dog Days - Summer's Endgame
In the San Francisco Bay Area, these are our dog days. Typically we get a few weeks of "Indian Summer" in October or November--something really unheard of in other parts of the country--when there are...
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The Man Without a Face
American Noir movies have long been used as metaphorical vehicles for European existentialist social, political and aesthetic theory. The hard-boiled tradition in American pulp serials and later...
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You're Never Too Young - Giants Win Pennant!!!
The first live major league baseball game I ever saw was at old Seals Stadium in San Francisco, in 1958, the first year the Giants arrived from New York, August 16th, 1958, against the Chicago Cubs....
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Cuban Composer Ernesto Lecuona
Cuban pianist and composer Ernesto Lecuona's [1895-1963, of Basque descent] work is well-recognized around the world, in large measure due to the success of his very popular keyboard piece Malaguena....
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There Are No Words
Our Giants' path to the championship this last weekend was impossible to anticipate. At mid-season, with the loss of Wilson and Cabrera, few would have predicted that this team would go as far as it...
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The Myth of Trickle-Down Job Creation
Governor Romney has rung the familiar charity bells for the "poor" rich folks who've had a tax holiday over the last decade. It's such a hackneyed refrain, as indelible as the jingle bells of the...
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Elliott Carter's Piano Sonata [1945-46]
Elliott Carter has died, and with his very late departure we can finally close the book on a whole epoch of American musical genius. As a member of the generation which included Copland, Harris,...
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Su-Mee at 31 Months
I don't know what to say about people who dote on their pets. Once upon a time, I would probably have thought it over-indulgent. When I was a boy, I got a girl kitten whom we named Snowfoot, as she...
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