“Hey, we’re running low on cinnamon. Could you pick some up the next time you swing by the market?” For more than a thousand years in Western history, such a request would have been incomprehensible. Spices were exotic and rare – among the most valuable commodities on earth. Today we take for granted that for a few dollars we can replenish… Read more »
Two months ago we had to let go of one of our dearest “family members.” Joker, an Australian Shepherd so named because he came into the world on April Fool’s Day, brightened our lives for 15 years. Well, except for that one memorable night a few years ago when I escorted him to the front door of our house. It was… Read more »
Owners of restaurants, bars, salons, and retail stores live in the hope of receiving five-star reviews from Yelp, a popular online customer review service. One-star reviews, on the other hand (“we had to endure the worst waiter ever”) can have immediate impact on public perception – even if the reviewer had simply gotten up on the wrong side of the bed… Read more »
There was a time, not so long ago, that parks were the exclusive playgrounds of the rich and famous. During most of European history, green spaces were cultivated by wealthy landowners for private use. Trespassers – including impoverished poachers trying to catch wild game for their family’s next meal – could be subject to imprisonment or even death. No one did more… Read more »
In 1849 a young Russian named Fyodor Dostoevsky was arrested and imprisoned. He was charged with being part of a group that read books that appeared to be critical of Czar Nicholas I. After awaiting trial for eight months in a festering jail, Dostoevsky and his fellow “criminals” were led outside three days before Christmas into the frigid air. They were horrified to… Read more »
Preachers and teachers usually keep a signature story in their back pocket – something they can always count on to drive home a key point. One of Billy Graham’s signature stories concerned Albert Einstein. Like a lot of the oft-repeated anecdotes concerning the brilliant physicist, it’s hard to differentiate between truth and fiction. But the story works nonetheless. According to Graham, Einstein… Read more »
Thomas Jefferson was obsessed with mammoths. The third president of the United States may be renowned for authoring the Declaration of Independence, founding the University of Virginia, and endlessly tinkering with his dream house at Monticello, but his mind never strayed too far from the possibility that giant prehistoric elephants were still alive and rampaging through North America. When Jefferson dispatched Meriwether… Read more »
In our wildest fantasies, we might dare to dream that one day something we have written will win a major literary prize. Then again, we wouldn’t necessarily call all of our friends if word came down that we had won the annual Bookseller / Diagram Prize. Since 1978 the BDP has been awarded to the oddest book title of the year…. Read more »
It’s hard to come up with an explanation for the extraordinary life of William Borden. Borden graduated from a private high school in Pennsylvania in 1903. He was just 16 years old and was already one of the richest men in the United States. William was the primary heir to his family’s fortune, which had come from silver mining out West… Read more »
Do you occasionally sleep past your designated wake-up time? Maybe 255 volts will help your feet find the floor. That’s the thinking behind Pavlok, the fitness band that (according to its website) helps you “wear your willpower” and “form good habits.” Or, as others have suggested, Pavlok is like a Fitbit that hates you. For around $175 you can shock yourself into a… Read more »
