A Surprising Reunion
It’s rare for me to meet anyone outside of my immediate family where I share childhood memories or a historic connection. Moving frequently means that these types of social connections vanish. Certainly, social media has altered the landscape and I now occasionally discover past acquaintances (or they locate me) through Instagram or Facebook. But I […]
Jane Again
The opportunity to reread a book seems a luxury. With all of the new books and limited time how do we justify it? On impulse, I borrowed a new paperback edition of Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre from the library. I had read it years ago as a teenager and I had also seen the film […]
Another Agee on Film
James Rufus Agee (1909-1955), was the posthumous winner of the Pulitzer Prize for literature in 1958 for his autobiographical novel, A Death in the Family. He is our family’s most distinguished member and comes from the Tennessee side of the family. After reading A Death in the Family, I decided to read his collection of film […]
Fashionable myths and other misdemeanours
Certain contemporary fashion designers are exalted as gods. These hemline giants create clothing designs for women (and sometimes men) that are intended to transcend the staid ready to wear, the plaintive Peter Pan collar and other fashion faux pas. Certain designers are best known for collections which celebrate their obsessions. The poster child for this […]
It’s not what you know; it’s who you know.
‘It’s not what you know; it’s who you know.’ is a truism with an edge. It instructs us that the well-connected will always have better professional and social opportunities. But what about the newcomer? For us, the ‘who you know’ can be very limited. This is a serious dilemma as we try to establish ourselves […]
And the runner up is…
As I wrote and revised The Newcomer’s Dictionary, there were a number of excellent words that I did not have the space to include. ‘Nomad’ lost out to ‘Newcomer’; ‘Alien’ was left behind for ‘Abroad’; ‘Immigrant’ was the runner up to ‘Itinerant’; ‘Homesick’ won out over ‘History’ and ‘Transient’ beat out ‘Transfer’. At times, I […]
Louisa May Alcott – newcomer inspiration
The Alcott family moved an exhausting twenty-two times in thirty years before settling into Orchard House in Concord, Massachusetts, which became the setting for Louisa May Alcott’s (1832–1888) semi autobiographical novel Little Women. She certainly deserves a special award for enduring so much change. Louisa’s father Amon Bronson was an intellectual and educator but he […]