Gift Bags and Tissue are the New Gift Wrap

NPR’s Youth Radio features a spot called “What is the New What” –observations on those societal evolutions in our day-to-day lives that become generational signposts. Recent Youth Radio commentators have observed Gas Prices are the New Curfew, Thai is the New...

Strike While the Thought is Hot

You’d think I would have learned by now. To write it down. Not to trust this memory of mine. But sleep was beckoning; and the thought was so bright, the image so indelible. How could it vanish? Surely I’d remember it in the morn……… Surely...

Books of the People

It’s been a banner summer for my writer friends and family. Last month I mentioned my sister, Lisa Thaler’s book Look Up: The life and art of Sacha Kolin, which just got a terrific review in the Chicago Tribune, putting Lisa in Francine Prose’s company for her...

Animal School

I’m not big on forwarding jokes and films and things. Unless they really make me laugh or think or make my eyes tear up and my nose go red. But this week I’m making an exception. This short, beautiful film was sent to me by my friend Laya Crust. (Check out her...

Unpaid, but….

I know it’s not just me. I know it’s not just me because I’ve talked to an increasing number of parents whose college age (and beyond) offspring have been offered jobs that evaporated when they reported for work. These aren’t the parents of...