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Nearing the 1964 Christmas break during my fifth grade, thirteen inches of snow blanketed my street late on a Thursday evening. Losing a school day to the elements was a beautiful thing. Friday morning, my friends and I mushed over to Central Park towing our sleds through the middle of the street. Milking the day… Read more »

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If you ask this New Yorker what’s his favorite hill in New York City: the bluff in Owl’s Head Park just north of 68th Street and Shore Road in the Bay Ridge neighborhood. The vista from this property has been the subject of art and photography for three centuries. Henry Cruse Murphy who helped found… Read more »

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The endless salvos in the American cultural war normally give me a headache and are usually beneath the dignity of comment. But the latest jeremiad against a Fox News host about the race of Santa Claus was informative. Megyn Kelly, on her program The Kelly File, remarked that Santa Claus is white. (She mentioned that… Read more »

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Dance and music are older than human civilization.  Dance and music are older than the human species.  Organisms on this planet have been communicating through expressive, exhibitory movement and phrased arrangements of sounds for hundreds of millions of years.  When we communicate through music and dance, we touch something greater than all that we know…. Read more »

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There is always a gap between information and understanding.  Often, the more information, the greater the gap, and with the expanse of information at our disposal today, this gap can become a gaping chasm.  Yet the understanding we seek has profound significance for our lives, whether it is whimsical such as making a great Halloween… Read more »