Brief Encounter
The first time I saw Brief Encounter, I saw it in a theatre; I was a teenager. I thought it was just about the best love story ever (okay, I was an overly romantic teenager). I hadn't seen it in years, though one of the lines kept coming back to me ("Go, you'll miss your train") and I could not remember what

Esther Hautzig
When I was six or seven, I bought a book at the Fairfax Elementary School book store (one book rack in Miss McCracken's classroom) called Let's Cook without Cooking, full of recipes that you could make without turning on the stove. My personal favorite was peanut butter butterscotch fudge. When I was ten years old, I

The Paradine Case

Cheaper by the Dozen

Dante Alighieri
Week before last, I spent a lot of quality time with Dante (mostly Inferno), working on a new ten-minute play. I had read The Divine Comedy for a class in college (Dorothy Sayers' translation, which unfortunately is out of print). What impressed me in looking at Dante again is how modern (he was born in 1265) much of his work feels. Here is a brief selection of my favorite quotes from him. I will not attempt writing out the Italian, though pretty much everything sounds better in Italian. The InfernoWhen I had journeyed half our life's wayI found myself within a shadowed forestfor I had lost the path that does not stray. Canto I, lines 1-3.Ther