Shocking Serendipity: Berlin in New York

Last week I entered a Midtown office building's lobby merely for the sake of getting from 53th to 54th Street without walking up Madison Avenue at rush hour. In the middle of…

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Hamilton’s Death Wish, revisited (Hamilton 9)

Last week I expressed my profound dissatisfaction at not being able to read in full a letter published in early 1776 in the Royal Danish American Gazette, which Chernow (p. 72) uses to…

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A cry of defiance and not of fear

"Paul Revere's Ride" is set on the night of the Battle of Lexington and Concord, April 1775. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote it in 1860 or 1861, just as the Civil War…

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Kipling on the Press

Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) - poet, short-story writer, and novelist - was also a journalist and editor. When he became famous, his fellow journalists constantly badgered him. His recently rediscovered poem "The Press,"…

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My Shot (Hamilton 8)

Have you stopped to think about the way "My Shot" builds on the opening number of Hamilton: An American Musical?  It sets him up as a young hero eager to change the…

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The Scarlet Pimpernel in Pompton Lakes, NJ: last shows 3/19-3/20/16

I’m driving three miles from Long Island City to Greenpoint, and I’m terrified. In rural Pennsylvania, we were taught to drive defensively - politely. Crossing every intersection in New York…

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On Copywriters (Great Quotes on Advertising, 2)

Good copy involves digging for facts before a word is written, not whirling around to a typewriter keyboard, and starting to bang out words. —Schwab, How to Write a Good Advertisement…

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