Emerson once wrote that ‘In every work of genius, we recognize our own rejected thoughts; they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty.”
With this definition in mind, songwriters are a particular type of genius creators. With a melody and relatively few words (usually between 100-300), the best have a rare ability to sing to us as if the words were moving from our own minds to mouths.…
It is estimated that over 275 million copies of the board game Monopoly have been sold, making it the best selling board game of all time. Approximately one billion people have said to have played the game at one point in their lives.
I’m guessing that only a small fraction know that this game, a tribute to capitalism, was originally envisioned as a game to promote communal values and fairness.…
In just the last week I tripped over these three tidbits:
On Sunday, our family went to Armonk, NY for Frosty Day. This town was home to Steve Nelson, the lyricist who wrote Frosty the Snowman. There we stood in the Village Square where 65 years ago, Frosty invited the kids to “catch him if you can.’
On Tuesday, I was distracted from work by one of those “20 Things You Didn’t Know About…” click bait articles.…
Last week a friend shared a speech given by the late basketball coach Jimmy Valvano.
It wasn’t the “Never Give Up” speech he is most known for – where he literally got off his death bed to accept the ESPN Courage award and announce the formation of the Jimmy V Foundation for Cancer Research.
It was a lesser-known talk given at a sales meeting several years earlier. In…
The fire broke out in the early morning. It traveled quickly through the walls of the white house on the corner lot. The 69 year-old Ralph Waldo Emerson rushed out of his home calling for help.
Townspeople throughout Concord came running to his aid. They included Louisa May Alcott, who with her sisters, were armed with baskets to rescue the books in his library.
On a recent tour, one of the historians pointed out a common feature of his home and others at the time. …
