Halloween: Why We Embrace The Fear
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In his review of the 1978 thriller, Halloween, Roger Ebert wrote, “sometimes we want to be scared…if you don’t want to have a really terrifying experience, don’t see Halloween.” Pauline Kael put it this way: “a lot of people seem to be convinced that Halloween is something special — a classic. Maybe when a horror film is […]
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Tunes From The Tombs
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Joe Mitchell, the late bestselling author, used to take long walks in cemeteries, wandering among the graves, reflecting on the fate that “awaits us all.” In one his New Yorker stories about a Staten Island cemetery where the area was so empty that it looked “as if everybody had locked up and gone off somewhere,” […]
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Was Mainland US Bombed in WWII?
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True or False: the mainland of the United States was bombed during World War II. No, this is not a trick reference to Pearl Harbor. This is the 48 contiguous states being hit by bombs during World War II. The answer is true. The United States was bombed during World War II. In fact, it […]
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WGN, The Cubs: More Than A Baseball Story
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After 71 years of harmony and profitability, the longest marriage in televised baseball history is officially dead. The Chicago Cubs and their broadcast partner, WGN, have severed ties. To paraphrase sportswriter supreme, Jim Murray, we all just became ten years older. Our youth has fled. The Cubs were first seen on WGN on April 23, […]
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Art Too Real To Die
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Caravaggio, the outlaw Italian painter of the late 16th and early 17th century, only lived to be 38 years old. Given his ungovernable temper and depraved behavior, it’s a wonder that he made it that far. And it’s equally implausible that in his turbulent life, where he found himself in jail fourteen times, Caravaggio could […]
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