A metaphor, as everyone knows, is a comparison between a subject and an object. She was so tall I was reminded of a tree is one example. A simile draws the same comparison but uses the words like or as to make the connection obvious. She stood tall as a tree.  Poetic devices like the

A few days ago, I had lunch with a fundraiser from an Arizona university. She was in town scouting for dollars to endow a Chair for the school of engineering. Though I wasn’t in a position to provide that level of cash, she stopped by for lunch and over our curries, we talked about

“Anybody seen in a bus over the age of thirty has been a failure in life.” So concludes a former duchess of Westminster, Loelia Lindsay, who extolled walking. She is quoted in an article about the virtue of being on foot by Mark Kingwell. (“Talking The Walk,” Harper’s June 2

A reader of my books, Gothic Spring and Trompe l’Oeil, wrote recently that she had to keep a dictionary nearby as she read the novels. I sympathize. I do the same whenever I read works by Germaine Greer, author of The Female Eunuch.  I’m grateful my vocabulary gets me through mos

A year ago, my blog contained a complaint about a poem in Harper’s that struck me as too inscrutable to mean anything to anyone except its author who, incidentally, won a Nobel prize for his art. Recently, a reader replied to that blog, offering his understanding of the piece. The i

A friend writes on Facebook tirelessly about scandals wrought by the government and big business. He gets so exorcised that I wondered if all this bad news might be raising his blood pressure. He assured me his complaints helped him blow off steam. I hope he’s right. The strategy wo

Several days had passed since I’d last opened the pages of Walter Kerr’s, The Decline of Pleasure — a free copy I’d picked up at my neighborhood library box. I’d been slow in my progress because the book, written 1962, contained many observations that seemed dated. I’m

In his essay supporting the rise of women in the business ranks, Warren Buffet, head of Berkshire Hathaway and one of the richest men in the world, offers two explanations for why it’s been difficult for women to rise to positions of leadership. The first is a male reluctance to dou

Pharmaceutical companies justify their drug prices on the basis of the cost of research. Seldom mentioned is the role other agencies play in the development of those products. Often, the original work is conducted at universities which are publically funded, not in private laboratorie

I watched a documentary hosted by Stephen Hawking last night. He spoke somberly about the dangers posed in an ever-changing universe and argued for continued technological developments that would allow us to explore other galaxies and other hospitable planets.  Given that technology