How the Materials We Write on Shape the Rise and Fall of Knowledge The story of Western civilization goes something like this: Egypt, Greece, Rome, the Dark Ages, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution. Along the way writing spreads, literacy grows, knowledge accumulates, and humanity gradually learns more about the world and how to […]
From Papyrus to the Cloud Read More »
Environmental Protector, Humanitarian, Humorist Larry Kolczak’s wife, Betty Petersen, was an artist who was so drawn to Ajijic that, when Larry retired in 2009, they already had a home here waiting for them. When Betty died three years ago, after a marriage to Larry of 35 years, which brought the gift of four stepchildren, one
PROFILE: Larry Kolczak Read More »
Artistic Director Lake Chapala Orchestra When Michael was a 10-year-old in England, he saw for the first time a conductor standing before a stage full of musicians, waving his arms, and shaping them into an orchestra. He told his father, “That’s what I want to do.” Today, at 69, he stands before the 65-piece Lake
PROFILE – Michael Reason Read More »
Robert Davies was my husband’s friend and colleague from the days when software engineer was their cutting-edge profession. Robert fell for a Chinese girl, and as he was being pulled inexorably toward China – she being from a one-child family with aging parents – he stopped by with her for a visit. It was the
My best job was my first. During the summer when I completed my 14th year, 1956, with my dearest friend, Laurel, (dearest then and still today) I refinished the carousel horses at Audubon Park in New Orleans. If Laurel were telling this, she would say “flying horses;” as a child, I said “merry-go-round.” The beloved
Peaking Early: The Carousel Read More »
Thinking of her happy 26 years of living at Lake Chapala, dancing along the way with flamenco, tango and son, New York City-born Joyce Noriega says, “After all, it’s my second home.” Then she thinks: “Or should I say Paris is my second home? Maybe Brussels? London?” It’s a true puzzle for ultra-cosmopolitan Joyce, now
PROFILE – Joyce Noriega Profile Read More »
No thinker has jolted my world view like Harvard, Stanford, MIT scholar, Canadian Steven Pinker. He studies language, mind, and human nature and gives us a view of the trajectory of human history that, like an object too close to focus on, is too much part and parcel of who we are for us to
— “Living with materiality is not what I do.” What a treat for me to get to write a profile of Lois Schroff. Born in 1924, she still is delightful at 101. And when I told her how much fun it had been to interview her since I got to ask such personal questions, she
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You may know me as that Shakespeare-trivia-obsessed person. In a piece I wrote for the Ojo, I noted that Edward de Vere and his lover, Anne Vavasour, were thrown into the Tower when Queen Elizabeth discovered that her lady-in-waiting was pregnant, and by whom. I’d read somewhere that she languished there longer than the three
Yelling at ChatGPT Read More »
Even as the Stratford man became popularly identified as Shakespeare some 150 years after his death, many readers knew he was a very unlikely candidate, but if not him, whom? It was popular, and reasonable, to consider people known for their brilliance, like Bacon, or people known for their playwriting, like Marlow. One had to
Cleopatra Blushes—Identifying Shakespeare Read More »
