The loves of Amélie

On this Valentine’s Day, may you find joy in the little things and be shamelessly and exuberantly in love with life.

“My Hero” by Billy Collins

It’s startling how Billy Collins pierces through the verbosity of prose to the core of an emotion. Since I discovered “The Lanyard,” poems like “Old Man Eating Alone in a Chinese Restaurant” and his new work “Cheerios” and “To My Favorite 17-Year-Old High School Girl” from Aimless Love have found their way into my scrapbook. “My Hero,” […]

The 7 Questions That Tell You Who You Are

Now that’s a list of questions tailor-made for deeply introspective types! I may have to use some of them as journal prompts.

The Founding Fathers were young

The Founding Fathers were basically teenagers. That’s what Joanna Goddard wrote in her weekly roundup of fun reads, which included the intriguing kottke.org’s post “The surprising ages of the Founding Fathers on July 4, 1776.” At the thought of it Jason Kottke was like, “This is kind of blowing my mind…because of the compression of history, […]

Piano by the sea

There’s a guy—an artist, a pianist—by the fitting name of Mauro Ffortissimo who, with the help of some friends, recently rolled out an aging baby grand piano onto the bluffs of Half Moon Bay, California, overlooking the Pacific Ocean, so that during the day passersby might plink away at the keys. But during the past […]