When I first heard of Siblings Day (April 10), I suspected it was something that had been fabricated by the greeting card industry, but I was wrong. Instead, this unofficial holiday was born transforming loss into tribute. After Claudia Evart’s sister and brother died in separate accidents, the New York resident created the Siblings Day Foundation to help honor, recognize and celebrate the special bond that brothers and sisters share. Considering that in popular lingo, sibling is often followed by rivalry, it is rather nice to have a different take on the subject.
Relationships
The Graduate
Commencement addresses are meant to articulate all that pent-up promise. In theory, they should congratulate, celebrate, and inspire; in reality, they are largely forgettable. The amnesiac-quality of those speeches should not be any surprise: they are delivered amidst pomp and circumstance and crowds of incredulous graduates and parents pondering, “I (expletive) can’t believe I (they) actually made it!”
But there are a few speeches with staying power, including those from good authors. Writers may not actually be any wiser than the average bear, but given the amount of contemplative time spent poking around in other people’s (real and fictional) lives, some pearly bits of their wisdom (or at least wit) should withstand all the revelry.
Paterfamilias
Books, like life, are filled with good—sometimes even great—fathers. Ditto for the tyrants. For every noble Atticus Finch-like character, there are some real stinkers, the love-to-hate-them kind of Dad, like Larry Cook, a modern-day King Lear, in “A Thousand Acres.”
It is easy to cheer for the good guys and boo the baddies, but what about the in-betweens, those who are neither patient nor prudent, but who are certainly not evil? Often, it is the flawed characters―the quirky, irresponsible, feckless, fickle, irascible, hyperbolic, conflicted, cowardly, and sometimes even absent―who make the most engagingly readable characters.
Read…And Be Dangerous!
March 8 is International Women’s Day, a date that garners a lot of attention on the global stage. In some countries, it is even a national holiday. Ironically, while a fine celebration in name, the honoring is more theory and show than actual practice, especially in places where women are subjected to numerous hardships and […]