A Place to Stand If you have ever gone through a toll booth, you know that your relationship to the person in the booth is not the most intimate you'll ever have. It is one of life's frequent non-encounters: You hand over some money; you might get ch...
Dreaming about Future Now is the time to dream. When things are at their worst, when people say there is no hope, when the future looks bleak, now is the time to dream. Forget about transport hikes, CPF cuts, ERP and GST raises. There is so much more...
The auditorium is full of people conversing in the audience. On the stage the performers are shuffling their music and tuning their instruments as they prepare for the performance. The conductor enters, takes a bow, and all is silent. He raises his b...
Hollywood Is Flush With Movies When Meg Ryan and Antonio Banderas signed up to star in an independently produced comedy-action movie called My Mom's New Boyfriend, the film's backers figured they had a slam dunk-a modestly priced film with bankable s...
The geisha coming of-age, was really more of a makeover, where she changed her hairstyle and clothes. It did not involve her getting intimate with a client. In the climactic scene where Sayuri wows Gion patrons with her dancing prowess, her routine w...
The Most Historically Inaccurate MoviesⅠ 10 000 B.C. Director Roland Emmerich is usually a stickler for realism. So we hate to inform him that woolly mammoths were not, in fact, used to build pyramids. Woolly mammoths weren't even found in the dese...
Top 10 Odd College Courses College courses aren't all Economics and The History of Europe. A trend among many colleges and universities is to offer coursesthat are slightly off the beaten track. Many of these courses draw their themes from pop cultur...
One of the pleasantest things in the world is going a journey: but I like to go by myself. I can enjoy society in a room; but out of doors, nature is company enough for me. I am then never less alone than when alone. The fields his study, nature was...
A twenty year old immigrant, Levi Strauss, came to the United States in 1850 to seek his fortune in the gold fields. But strangely enough, this man made his fortune on heavy canvas that he found suitable for working clothes. Strauss ' jeans were part...
Napping is too luxurious, too sybaritic, too unproductive, and it's free; pleasures for which we don't pay make us anxious. Besides, it seems to be a natural inclination. Those who get paid to investigate such things have proved that people deprived...
How to Have Less Awkward Conversation What is assuming rapport? Basically, instead of going into a conversation or meeting nervously and thinking how will this go? you take different approach. You assume that you and the person will establish a good...
A correspondent from the Czech Republic asks a powerful question:How would you encourage English language learners at secondary and postsecondary schools; what do they have to be careful about and what joys can they expect when dealing with a languag...
What exactly do you do when you make a cup of coffee? ● Take one cup ● Put in a spoonful of dark, bitter powder ● Add a spoonful of sweetness ● Pour in hot, clear liquid ● Add whiteness Alone, each item has a complete flavor of its own. The...
William Shakespeare: Sonnet 55 Not marble, nor the gilded monuments Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme; But you shall shine more bright in these contents Than unswept stone besmear'd with sluttish time. When wasteful war shall statues over...
My Last Duchess Ferrara Thats my last Duchess painted on the wall, Looking as if she were alive. I call That piece a wonder, now: Fra Pandolfs hands Worked busily a day, and there she stands. Willt please you sit and look at her? I said Fra Pandolf b...
