tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16367473564501085932012-01-29T22:12:46.602-05:00Wig & Penhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15883988890861506854noreply@blogger.comBlogger901100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1636747356450108593.post-79721041053967202552012-01-28T18:23:00.003-05:002012-01-29T22:12:46.618-05:00

Jimmy Finlayson,left, with America's exemplar of fatherhood Thanks to the majesty of Homer Simpson, the interjection doh has become a phenomenon--even a cause célèbre. It is the cat's pajamas among interjections, which remain the poorest of poor relations among the parts of speech. Two weeks ago, with leverage from the web site Laughing Squid, a Simpsons enthusiast   launched an amusing,

Wig & Penhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15883988890861506854noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1636747356450108593.post-46165193386698061802012-01-20T18:36:00.032-05:002012-01-20T21:30:16.925-05:00

When I chance upon a seductively kickable rock on a walk, it’s usually good for two or three kicks before it squibs away. Often, I blame my own ineptness rather than the rock’s idiosyncrasies. Which is why discovering (and launching) a bagel on the sidewalk during an evening stroll in December proved so therapeutic. With zero practice, I instantly achieved mastery over the bagel’s speed and

Wig & Penhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15883988890861506854noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1636747356450108593.post-46057221147977478762012-01-15T18:22:00.005-05:002012-01-15T23:25:34.617-05:00

Built in the late 1960s in the collegiate "bunker" architecture of the Vietnam War Era, the administration building on my campus has weathered decades of anti-war and other student protests.  Inside the building, however, several of the original polymer-based staircases betray 50+ years of continuous footfalls. Notice that the "swayback" steps in the above photos are predominantly on the right

Wig & Penhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15883988890861506854noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1636747356450108593.post-34418306444799499162012-01-09T19:46:00.004-05:002012-01-09T21:00:27.987-05:00

AP photo from The Wall Street Journal Two weeks ago, while gazing at photos of North Koreans in mourning--including grown men chewing the scenery--I recalled head shots depicting emotional states in the books and training materials of Paul Ekman. What, I wondered, would Professor Ekman, our leading authority on "reading" emotions from facial expressions, make of that frenzy of facial

Wig & Penhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15883988890861506854noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1636747356450108593.post-33882296209557792452012-01-01T19:16:00.007-05:002012-01-11T16:27:41.317-05:00

With my own marriage in the rear view mirror, I felt vicarious joy viewing recent photos of an old friend, now in his mid-sixties and his much younger wife. A naysayer might sniff: What unmitigated trophyism--even the enchantress has one to display.  I say, why spite an honest celebration of fitness (in a Darwinian sense)? After all, we're likely witnessing DNA that will keep on giving in the

Wig & Penhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15883988890861506854noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1636747356450108593.post-87415847507621077352011-12-23T17:48:00.001-05:002011-12-23T17:54:59.209-05:00

If your family, like mine, walks on the dysfunctional side of the street, you value distractions—any distraction—during holiday gatherings.  Why not, then, in the interest of family harmony, ponder this question?: What were the first movies and TV shows where duct tape first replaced rope, cloth, etc. as a sinister restraint of choice? My own recollections are fuzzy—the great migration seems to

Wig & Penhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15883988890861506854noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1636747356450108593.post-81397249895554268162011-12-14T19:18:00.001-05:002011-12-14T21:50:39.813-05:00

Abbie Hoffman would have been 75 on November 30. I grew up two streets away from the Hoffmans on Worcester’s predominantly Jewish west side.  Although Abbie was 15 years my senior, his footprint in the neighborhood was sticky. My father, a dentist, did business with  Abbie’s father,  who owned a medical supply store.  “Abbie has once again given Johnny a heart attack,” my father announced one

Wig & Penhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15883988890861506854noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1636747356450108593.post-20878043432157870302011-12-07T18:56:00.002-05:002011-12-07T19:02:15.921-05:00

Welch & Rawlings:  Spiritual-Musical Heirs of John Dowland? Gillian Welch in Concert—In reality, it’s a shorthand for Gillian Welch & David Rawlings in Concert. Welch without Rawlings is yin without yang; Laurel without Hardy. Three standing ovations at the end of their November 28th two-hour concert at the Calvin Theater in Northampton, Massachusetts celebrated the musical beast with two

Wig & Penhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15883988890861506854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1636747356450108593.post-79818267565493443322011-11-28T18:39:00.002-05:002011-11-28T23:48:56.150-05:00

Last Wednesday’s PBS special Country Music: In Performance at the White House offered exceptional performers, exceptional songs, exceptional musicianship. For anyone who sniffs at country music, it underscored that we only cheat ourselves by ignoring the best in a musical genre—any genre. The performers—Dierks Bentley, Alison Krauss, Lyle Lovett, the Band Perry, James Taylor, and

Wig & Penhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15883988890861506854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1636747356450108593.post-19274124758595348062011-11-16T19:58:00.005-05:002011-11-16T20:11:52.310-05:00

For several months, benches alongside Northampton, Massachusetts' Hampshire County courthouse and the upscale Hotel Northampton have sported bolt-reinforced wooden dividers. With all the sophistication of a middle school shop project and evocative of urinal partitions, these contrivances—in one of America’s most avowedly liberal small cities—have one underlying purpose: to keep the homeless and

Wig & Penhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15883988890861506854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1636747356450108593.post-29190419451576737002011-11-10T22:19:00.003-05:002011-11-10T22:36:12.240-05:00

On November 1—36 hours after the electrical grid went dark for  90%+  of the Pioneer Valley—this blogger—ensconced in Amherst, Massachusetts—pledged to begin all conversations with the greeting: “Are you on the grid or off?” As the week progressed and the grid played hard-to-get for 50% of the Valley’s captives, the salutation grew terser with “On the gird or off?” and finally the skeletal “On

Wig & Penhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15883988890861506854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1636747356450108593.post-34144456619326606432011-10-26T21:34:00.009-04:002011-11-02T15:37:10.643-04:00

Yankee Police Lineup--1 through 5 Ben Cherington’s enlightened appointment as Red Sox GM on October 25 was the beginning of  onwards  and upwards for Red Sox Nation. Here’s another positive development. Last week, the New York Times revealed a winsome Yankee lineup.  It’s a police lineup—all beneath the shelter of Yankee caps. Like L.A. (nee Oakland) Raiders apparel, Yankee-branded threads

Wig & Penhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15883988890861506854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1636747356450108593.post-11249876010310240562011-10-24T21:53:00.002-04:002011-10-25T16:24:23.962-04:00

I must have passed by the above photo at the Woodstar Cafe in Northampton, Massachusetts  a dozen times without recognizing its famous subject(s). The photograph is on the wall opposite the café’s entrance; it’s the centerpiece in a mini exhibit (including arresting shots of  Woodstar baristas) by the New Hampshire/Berkshires photographer Edward Acker. Fortunately, on Sunday morning, I  found

Wig & Penhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15883988890861506854noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1636747356450108593.post-16162230459061482011-10-21T23:26:00.000-04:002011-10-21T23:26:46.323-04:00

The frisson of unforeseen consequences! Who’da thunk that the posturings of Hurricane Irene in August would lock down the annual Mohawk Trail (Route 2) hegira of  leaf peepers in October?  At the beginning of the month, the Massachusetts Department of Transportation announced that a six-mile mountainous stretch on the trail between western Charlemont and the evocatively named township of Florida

Wig & Penhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15883988890861506854noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1636747356450108593.post-39346424123507393182011-10-13T11:45:00.011-04:002011-10-14T09:33:15.049-04:00

Half a lifetime ago, an older woman in my graduate program cattily inquired, “Are you a serious drinker?”  My patented response: “Not at all.  .  . I’m a ridiculous drinker!” That’s because the Wig & Pen liquid-seeking machine (a.k.a. this blogger) comes with a  homeostatic metabolism that makes more than a couple of drinks more trouble than they’re worth. That includes drinking while

Wig & Penhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15883988890861506854noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1636747356450108593.post-72518406114243332382011-07-19T15:33:00.003-04:002011-07-19T15:51:41.547-04:00

Look for mass demonstrations in Syria to skyrocket with the beginning of Ramadan on sundown, July 31. In the Arab world, there’s no more sustained networking opportunity —Facebook and Twitter included—than Islam’s holiest month with its daily gatherings in houses of worship. In spite of the Assad regime’s brutality, 100,000+ Syrians have demonstrated every Friday—Islam’s Sabbath—over the past

Wig & Penhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15883988890861506854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1636747356450108593.post-72470836629426620152011-07-07T21:03:00.006-04:002011-07-08T16:59:34.438-04:00

Photo by Ariel Wigdor On June 29, funk deity Bootsy Collins, who will be 60 in October, brought his flamboyant musical retinue to the Palladium in Worcester, Massachusetts. In a previous life, the Palladium, a block down Main Street from elegant Mechanics Hall, was the Plymouth Theatre, a deteriorating movie palace frequented by this blogger in the 1960s. Today, the once seedy Mechanics Hall is

Wig & Penhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15883988890861506854noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1636747356450108593.post-68330298950968530562011-06-16T11:41:00.010-04:002011-06-20T09:42:06.009-04:00

Best Place. Best Crews. Best Films., exults the Massachusetts Film Office , the state-run marketing outfit charged with enticing film makers to make movies and TV shows in the Bay State. In recent years, Massachusetts has hosted The Social Network, The Fighter, Shutter Island, soon to-be-released Moneyball, and other big-time productions.  Since 2007, the agency has set down cat nip for

Wig & Penhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15883988890861506854noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1636747356450108593.post-48102351108445911292011-06-03T22:03:00.009-04:002011-06-03T22:38:00.370-04:00

A Bonnie & Clyde Bank Heist, Amherst Style. In April, a young middle class couple, Michael Oldershaw, 24, of Sunderland and Shayna Henckel-Miller, 19, of Amherst allegedly conspired to rob Amherst’s highest-profile bank, The Bank of America. Oldershaw walked into the bank weaponless with a note that Henkel-Miller allegedly had helped him write, and handed it to a teller, who presented him with

Wig & Penhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15883988890861506854noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1636747356450108593.post-68257240674169594652011-05-27T17:44:00.007-04:002011-05-27T21:42:24.642-04:00

Annoying is a well-crafted, valuable read. The authors give generous treatment both to the social psychology and physical science mechanisms of much that annoys. That includes public cell phone conversations, the blaring of sirens, the buzzing of flies, the cracking of knuckles, the machinations of Newman on Seinfeld. As a closet Lothario, I was intrigued that attractive traits in courtship like

Wig & Penhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15883988890861506854noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1636747356450108593.post-62957282551433783652011-05-19T17:47:00.013-04:002011-05-20T14:38:59.452-04:00

Consumer advisory: In its popular 7-day forecast web page, the National Weather Service assigns a weather image to each day and night ahead that often views the weather-glass as half empty. As a former U.S. president might have complained, Those stormy pictures are often big hat, no cattle. That is why this blog as a public service has grafted two Seasonal Affective Disorder lights like bookends

Wig & Penhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15883988890861506854noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1636747356450108593.post-62986043391116105532011-05-15T18:04:00.008-04:002011-05-15T19:06:32.221-04:00

For the second year running, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst’s Undergraduate Commencement Ceremony featured a nationally prominent keynote speaker that mirrored the university’s increasing national stature. Last year, FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair got the call. On Friday, May 13, national political pundit and former advisor to four presidents David Gergen was at the podium welcoming his

Wig & Penhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15883988890861506854noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1636747356450108593.post-37538957488407213332011-05-02T21:52:00.005-04:002011-05-03T11:11:35.263-04:00

At the end of his 9-minute announcement of Osama Bin Laden’s demise, President Obama threw his audience an unexpected behind-the-Barak-pass. Speech over, he turned 180 degrees and ambled off down a hallway with his backside to his audience. A remarkable forensic sayonara from an American president. To decode that nonverbal passage, this blog spoke with several marketing professors and

Wig & Penhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15883988890861506854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1636747356450108593.post-85575693644584233822011-04-29T15:34:00.012-04:002011-05-02T15:14:26.460-04:00

This is not a pig!!--Such a comfort for the zoo-going  public at the peccary corral at the Biblical Zoo in Jerusalem. To cover most bases, the signage is in Hebrew, Yiddish, English, and Arabic. And it terminates with two exclamation marks to underscore its urgency and transcendent import. (See the photo below; the sign, of course, reads right to left.) Source: FRGDR blog  After all, “the

Wig & Penhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15883988890861506854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1636747356450108593.post-15567953689944275902011-04-24T23:11:00.005-04:002011-04-25T15:34:17.082-04:00

James Taylor;Paul Simon There comes a time in many a follicle-challenged pop-star’s career when the decision to conceal hair loss looms large. After all, for many of those ageing baldies, the seductions of marketing still pander to their roots in a culture where youth’s magic horn plays on. Check out, then, the Maginot Line in the career of James Taylor—a boundary where the hatless vagaries of

Wig & Penhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15883988890861506854noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1636747356450108593.post-81658884121885465512011-04-18T13:43:00.002-04:002011-04-19T17:26:55.853-04:00

In the clip below, Chris Hitler, an investment and real estate specialist in Mequon, Wisconsin, wants you to know that he is passionate about personal storage. Listen to the clip, and you’ll hear Chris, without pretentiousness or guile, deliver his pitch. For Wig & Pen, the experience was revelatory—everything about Mr. Hitler exudes middle American normalcy except, of course, the drop-dead

Wig & Penhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15883988890861506854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1636747356450108593.post-14821940857380700922011-04-12T12:23:00.005-04:002011-04-12T16:08:27.199-04:00

The brand that was Lou For a second year running, this blog celebrates the enchanted craft of branding. What a growth industry it has become! Just like power tools, ping pong balls, universities, and New Age retreats, individuals have their own brands too. Such hopes had I for the improvement of my own personal brand 14 years ago after discovering Tom Peters’ heady article, The Brand Called

Wig & Penhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15883988890861506854noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1636747356450108593.post-91095555432296768672011-04-04T14:28:00.011-04:002011-04-04T21:42:43.231-04:00

Still Wafer-thin after all theses years The Borgias, which debuted last night on Showtime with the no-holds-barred episode, “The Poisoned Chalice/The Assassin,” stars Jeremy Irons as Rodrigo Borgia, a.k.a. Pope Alexander VI. Without question Alexander could really fill a vestment (See above.) Jeremy Irons, on the other hand (like the late George Harrison), has—to euphemize—gaunt good looks.

Wig & Penhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15883988890861506854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1636747356450108593.post-43348684159447683262011-03-30T16:09:00.026-04:002011-04-13T16:32:42.592-04:00

“I know trance music when I hear it,” might have been the response of late U.S. Supreme Justice Potter Stewart had he attended last Friday night’s (March 25) concert as the final installment in this year’s Parallels Series, an inspired new music series at Amherst College. For a nonstop hour and 45 minutes, Ethiopia’s greatest singer, Mahmoud Ahmed, backed by Boston’s Either/Orchestra—a

Wig & Penhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15883988890861506854noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1636747356450108593.post-14780247276622131462011-03-24T18:19:00.004-04:002011-03-25T11:55:33.287-04:00

The next time you reach for a Dorito, consider its rounded corners. Those beveled vertices are soft, but it wasn’t always that way. Before the great Dorito makeover of 1994, they came to sharp points, just like at your friendly Mexican restaurant. In the company of a good sangria, who hasn’t felt the prick? I first became aware of Doritos’ rounded corners ten years ago on a tour at a Frito-Lay

Wig & Penhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15883988890861506854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1636747356450108593.post-23998754905384057402011-03-14T17:14:00.009-04:002011-03-15T11:18:06.828-04:00

Last week, when my son’s alarm failed to detonate for school, trouble ensued. So I promised that we’d buy a new clock at our local oasis for controlled substances, CVS. Perhaps because of the aura of drugs, we began riffing compulsively—a la Who’s on First—about buying not a clock but a Glock—e.g., a high-performance Glock with a quiet mechanism, etc. Of course, it was easy pickings to home in

Wig & Penhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15883988890861506854noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1636747356450108593.post-11499209951560182912011-03-08T16:02:00.009-05:002011-04-14T10:11:14.214-04:00

 Source: The Wall Street Journal When I was five, my family lived next door to an affable guy who owned a fish market on Water Street, the old Jewish commercial center in Worcester, Massachusetts. His wife was a bleached blonde and a chronic malcontent--often with him in the crosshairs. “Nathan—don’t come near me until you’ve showered,” was her ritual greeting to him after a fishy day’s work

Wig & Penhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15883988890861506854noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1636747356450108593.post-25807189327588151822011-03-01T15:09:00.007-05:002011-03-02T11:54:37.894-05:00

Will Kevlar Save in Texas? Blogger’s preface: Two years ago, my friend Osgood,* a dynamic professor of accounting, left my campus in Amherst to head up an accounting department at a large private university in Texas. Lately, I’ve been thinking about him in light of forthcoming legislation in the Lone Star State that will give college students and their professors the right

Wig & Penhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15883988890861506854noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1636747356450108593.post-23080749886063079012011-02-18T17:38:00.004-05:002011-04-13T16:19:12.299-04:00

Get Out of My Way, You Jerk, a recent article in The Wall Street Journal, examined the causes and consequences of pedestrian sidewalk rage. The feature cited average rates of locomotion in Manhattan for men (4.42 feet per second), women (4.10 fps), cellphone users (4.20 fps), tourists (3.79 fps), and others. And it sparked my memories of an elderly Brit with two oversized canes and the air of a

Wig & Penhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15883988890861506854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1636747356450108593.post-76217019627301252602011-02-13T18:40:00.009-05:002011-02-14T16:54:41.921-05:00

Say what you will about the Catholic Church--unlike many American institutions, it has protected its key employees—i.e, the priests, from the scythe of downsizing via outsourcing and replacement by new technologies. Heaven knows the American Catholic Church has bills to pay. To this end, it has embarked on an unprecedented fire sale of church property and parish consolidations. Priests, of course

Wig & Penhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15883988890861506854noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1636747356450108593.post-46827475997089156732011-02-09T15:10:00.003-05:002011-02-10T21:45:58.021-05:00

This year’s long-overdue Metropolitan Opera production of John Adams’ Nixon in China (introduced by the Houston Grand Opera in 1987) is a big deal. It is coming (simulcast) to a cinema or auditorium near you this Saturday afternoon at 1 p.m. (A reprise performance is planned for early March.) In Nixon, Adams moved well beyond minimalism, incorporating wafts of big band jazz; didactic,

Wig & Penhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15883988890861506854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1636747356450108593.post-58525758685069547682011-02-04T15:27:00.008-05:002011-02-05T17:55:50.928-05:00

A tip for New Englanders who are stressed out over the elements. Seek out a Canadian for a saner hibernal perspective. It worked wonders for me, especially after I had convinced myself that this Massachusetts winter might well rival a winter in Quebec. Thankfully, my septugenerian Canadian mentor, born and bred in Fredericton, New Brunswick, set me straight. Yes, she conceded, the past month

Wig & Penhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15883988890861506854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1636747356450108593.post-6433316806823736772011-01-29T18:07:00.009-05:002011-01-30T16:13:20.204-05:00

One week ago at 3 a.m., I heard an owl from the trees behind my house. It offered several repetitions of the same sustained note in a dulcet alto that belied the bird’s predatory ways. Then, I heard a second note—a perfectly pitched fifth above the first—presumably from the same owl. But I was wrong. The fifth had come from a second owl. And then it happened. The two owls combined their notes

Wig & Penhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15883988890861506854noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1636747356450108593.post-10163740239303470062011-01-26T12:50:00.012-05:002011-01-27T23:02:00.555-05:00

My first memory of collective Boomer decline came in Martin Scorsese’s The Last Waltz, shot in November of 1976. Close up after close up revealed road maps of dissipation on the faces and physiques of iconic music makers of My Generation. When Van Morrison, portly and prematurely middle aged, bounced out on stage, the graffiti was on the wall: the Boomers might just be mortal after all, like any

Wig & Penhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15883988890861506854noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1636747356450108593.post-85726364136274069282011-01-22T21:52:00.010-05:002011-01-22T23:05:55.298-05:00

Click to enlarge. (On the right--The Bluth Family) It's common knowledge that holiday season revenues, not Santa, are a retailer’s saving grace. According to Jon Hurst, president of the Retailers Association of Massachusetts (this blog’s home state), holiday sales account for about 25 percent of annual business for the average Massachusetts store. But the retail world is not alone as the

Wig & Penhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15883988890861506854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1636747356450108593.post-43696286621403695242011-01-19T16:18:00.005-05:002011-01-20T09:48:23.104-05:00

Click to enlarge When Edward Hopper and his wife Jo read in the New York Evening Post that Alfred Hitchcock had credited Edward’s 1925 painting House by the Railroad as the principal inspiration for the Bates house in Psycho, the couple was delighted, notes Hopper biographer Gail Levin. The painting with its isolated subject is widely said to depict loneliness and modernity’s abandonment of the

Wig & Penhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15883988890861506854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1636747356450108593.post-84300070024549406322011-01-10T11:54:00.007-05:002011-01-11T11:34:40.910-05:00

(Courtauld Institute of Art, London) Sure, we’re the same species as the Homo sapiens depicted in pre-20th century paintings, but who hasn’t felt a disconnect when gazing in the art world’s rear view mirror—a chasm separating earlier cultures from our own? In that, transformations in material culture deserve much of the credit. Which is one good reason why Edouard Manet’s A Bar at

Wig & Penhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15883988890861506854noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1636747356450108593.post-79881155666759233892011-01-03T17:01:00.004-05:002011-01-14T11:32:50.532-05:00

  Few Americans will lament the death on December 13 of Enrique Morente, age 67, Flamenco’s leading male vocalist (cantaor). That’s because few Americans have heard of Morente or, for that matter, of his fellow cantores. But for flamenco, losing Morente—a traditionalist and a modernizer; a guardian and disseminator of Lorca, Antonio Machado, and other Spanish poets; and a world music

Wig & Penhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15883988890861506854noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1636747356450108593.post-42169751680082578122010-12-23T22:05:00.018-05:002010-12-28T18:10:40.541-05:00

 From The Polar Express--Warner Movies  In his brilliant, riotous book, Born to Kvetch, professor and stand-up comic Michael Wex pays homage to Yiddish as an essential ingredient in a subversive glass-is-half-empty under-culture. Today and during my childhood, that influence lives on via the dark nuances of Jewish American humor and in the critical skepticism of Americans of Jewish ancestry.

Wig & Penhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15883988890861506854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1636747356450108593.post-82636419364209130342010-12-17T12:43:00.011-05:002010-12-17T17:55:16.522-05:00

In his latest book, The Mind’s Eye, neurologist and psychiatrist-physician Oliver Sacks explores the resilience of human compensatory powers that arise after the loss of senses and perceptual-cognitive abilities that we take for granted. These include speech, the ability to recognize faces (Sacks’ own personal challenge), perception of three-dimensional space, reading, and eyesight. The book’s

Wig & Penhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15883988890861506854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1636747356450108593.post-48484835647055295042010-12-10T21:55:00.004-05:002010-12-11T18:51:38.590-05:00

The New York Times November 21 obit for Norris Church Mailer, the Arkansas beauty who married Norman Mailer, not only sheds light on her marriage but on President William Jefferson Clinton. In what some might consider a coda of stunning irreverence, the obit concluded with an extract from her memoir, in which a female friend in Arkansas politics told the late Ms. Mailer: “I guess he [Clinton]

Wig & Penhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15883988890861506854noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1636747356450108593.post-22286721697800596332010-12-05T22:12:00.005-05:002010-12-08T11:00:25.339-05:00

If you seek nuanced armchair immersion into China’s dynamic culture, read New Yorker magazine columnist Peter Hessler’s latest book, Country Driving. With virtually no authorial ego, Peter illuminates the greatest rural-to-urban migration of our times through a narrative loaded with poignant stories of individuals and families and framed with astute economic and cultural insights. They’ll be

Wig & Penhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15883988890861506854noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1636747356450108593.post-33273341717396965302010-12-01T16:17:00.005-05:002010-12-02T10:08:57.917-05:00

Manly Men (left: from Pete Sousa, The White House File) Call it audacity of hope; call it a quickening of the presidential mojo—President Obama was back on a basketball court a scant two days after taking that elbow to the mouth and an added helping of 12 stiches. There’s no denying the President’s mental and physical resilience. And there’s no denying the arduous physical demands (and risks)

Wig & Penhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15883988890861506854noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1636747356450108593.post-771165646818122262010-11-23T10:53:00.014-05:002010-11-24T16:45:38.085-05:00

Anna Netrebko In 2007, the outstanding American tenor Brandon Jovanovich won the annual Richard Tucker Award, reserved for “an American singer poised on the edge of a major national and international career.” Past Tucker honorees include Renee Fleming, Jennifer Larmore, and Stephanie Blythe; so Mr. Jovanovich’s accomplishment was no small beer. Yet, on November 15, in an article by Associated

Wig & Penhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15883988890861506854noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1636747356450108593.post-16707587345978561612010-11-16T11:27:00.005-05:002010-11-16T15:41:18.957-05:00

If Turkish Nobelist Orhan Pamuk’s recent novel, The Museum of Innocence, were a quiz show, it might be called, What’s My Obsession? Set in Istanbul and running into the first years of the millenium,  the 530-page volume explores several untidy fixations, each which holds viscous fingers with its successor. The central character, Kemal Basmaci, (the author's demographic doppelganger) embraces a

Wig & Penhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15883988890861506854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1636747356450108593.post-74223420899233052062010-11-03T22:02:00.005-04:002010-11-05T15:02:50.784-04:00

A story in the November 2 issue of The Daily Hampshire Gazette gives new cred to Amherst, Massachusetts’ hard-earned reputation as a Valhalla of politically correct gestures and improvisations. The Gazette reported that on October 29th, more than 30 bicyclists descended on a local street “riding in and out” and “causing difficulties for vehicles using the road.” Then, a Hummer rolled onto the

Wig & Penhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15883988890861506854noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1636747356450108593.post-41511745065426149592010-10-31T14:23:00.001-04:002010-11-05T14:23:09.043-04:00

From the ADA's web site: The popularity of television shows, movies and books featuring vampires has led some people to actually file their teeth to points, making them look like vampire fangs.  "We strongly caution people against altering their teeth because of a fad. Filing teeth weakens tooth structure and, if the person later changes his mind, restoring teeth to their natural shape can be

Wig & Penhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15883988890861506854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1636747356450108593.post-33405639104377576502010-10-30T21:56:00.012-04:002010-11-05T14:24:43.397-04:00

In the inspired Curb Your Enthusiasm episode “Trick or Treat” (Season 2, Episode 3), Larry David, through self-inflicted obstinacy—falls prey to every child’s Halloween equalizer—The Trick. On Halloween night, Larry has been an exceedingly generous candyman until two overage teenage girls, sans costumes, show up at his door, demanding candy.  Larry’s Response: No candy for you! It doesn’t

Wig & Penhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15883988890861506854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1636747356450108593.post-83329052641545715942010-10-25T10:17:00.006-04:002010-11-05T14:26:16.765-04:00

 Capsule hotel accommodations in Osaka When it comes to things Japanese, the notion of small is beautiful is an understatement. The macrocosm is in the microcosm better describes the situation, especially in Japan’s limperific deflationary times. A recent New York Times feature,  Japan Goes from Dynamic to Disheartened: The Great Deflation, chronicles a phenomenon in Japanese urban real estate,

Wig & Penhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15883988890861506854noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1636747356450108593.post-11608866315552863092010-10-14T16:09:00.019-04:002010-11-05T14:27:27.655-04:00

Before my first meal at Northampton’s Lhasa Café in 2004, I had never tasted Tibetan food. In all fairness, the café—Western Massachusetts’ only Tibetan restaurant—was but two months old—still working things out. Following flavor-challenged portions of stir-fried vegetables, rice, and two types of Tibetan breads, one of them a wraith-like doughy dumpling called a momo, I finally encountered

Wig & Penhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15883988890861506854noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1636747356450108593.post-1790821594358849812010-10-07T23:34:00.007-04:002010-11-05T14:28:38.505-04:00

A Wig & Pen Parental Advisory: Use discretion when reading Beatrix Potter to your children. In almost every Potter tale, her main characters—everyone from Peter Rabbit to Jemima Puddle Duck—flirt with mortal danger. Big whoop, you protest; classic Fairy Tales derive much of their energy and their charm from ill-intentioned miscreants like ogres and witches; giants and goblins. Still, the

Wig & Penhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15883988890861506854noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1636747356450108593.post-31608355753989281052010-09-26T22:21:00.012-04:002010-11-05T14:30:51.690-04:00

So it’s a jobless recovery after all. Is anybody still waiting for Godot? Better to contemplate the insights in these two handy volumes for our post-recessionary times. With The Black Book of Outsourcing, the cult of outsourcing will be your friend whether you’re a still viable business or a downsized employee. If the Black Book fails to save your business, then turn to Last Rights: Liquidating

Wig & Penhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15883988890861506854noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1636747356450108593.post-17606152084472259962010-09-10T21:45:00.025-04:002010-09-12T22:13:26.133-04:00

Mayor Bloomberg When New Yorkers elected Michael Bloomberg as their mayor, they knew that they had chosen an independent spirit who could not be bought politically or financially. Now, with 2/3 of polled New Yorkers ambivalent about his determined advocacy of a 13-story Islamic center near Ground Zero, the mayor's steadfastness on the issue has offered us rock-solid evidence that he indeed "

Wig & Penhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15883988890861506854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1636747356450108593.post-68086706339963530802010-08-30T23:04:00.004-04:002010-09-02T10:55:40.079-04:00

Globophobia Twenty years ago, I discovered an intriguing fact about a coworker. An attractive, confident women in her early thirties, she had a master’s degree and a glass-is-half-full attitude. One day, a visitor appeared at our office door with several helium balloons and a card addressed to one of our student workers. After signing for the delivery, my coworker passed the balloons and card

Wig & Penhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15883988890861506854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1636747356450108593.post-55462396746375045872010-08-26T21:43:00.001-04:002010-08-26T21:47:40.310-04:00

 Clark House Fence(l.)                President's House (r.) “The fence is inconsistent with the way the college is; we don’t have a fence between ourselves and the community,” Amherst College’s director of design and construction Tom Davies recently told the Daily Hampshire Gazette. Director Davies was explaining the college’s principal decision to take down the 80-year-old, 310 foot-long

Wig & Penhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15883988890861506854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1636747356450108593.post-59862193030054544912010-08-21T20:11:00.012-04:002010-08-23T15:02:35.019-04:00

It’s intermission at Tanglewood’s Seiji Ozawa Hall (The smaller hall used mostly for chamber concerts). I’m sauntering across the lawn to the facilities when I spot a diminutive vending machine about the height of a newspaper box. It sports an official-looking red cross beneath eight fully loaded rows of colorful packets of Imodium, Pepto Bismol, Bayer’s, and five other restoratives. The pigmy

Wig & Penhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15883988890861506854noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1636747356450108593.post-47432476180583702752010-08-15T17:58:00.014-04:002011-01-27T23:11:42.548-05:00

Here’s a suggestion that will bring magic to your next soiree. Have your guests fess up their attitudes and behavior toward umbrella sheathing. This, of course, applies principally to umbrellas that collapse in on themselves; not to most traditional pole umbrellas, which rarely come with sheaths. (Don’t worry about disenfranchising the owners of pole umbrellas at your party. They will revel in

Wig & Penhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15883988890861506854noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1636747356450108593.post-75760387354426069402010-07-26T22:13:00.004-04:002010-07-26T22:34:42.873-04:00

“Squirrels nest in trees?—No way. I thought they lived in stone walls or in holes in the ground like chipmunks,” protested a friend in her early 40s. A similar response from a second friend suggested a pattern. (Both, of course, were referring not to short-tailed ground squirrels but to the ubiquitous grey squirrel that has adapted so successfully in our midst.) Both of my friends are graduates

Wig & Penhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15883988890861506854noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1636747356450108593.post-71003891543070411832010-07-21T22:25:00.005-04:002010-07-30T11:14:39.462-04:00

In April 2009, my son and I lucked out with a behind-the-scenes tour at the TD Bank Garden, several hours before a Celtics game. Shortly after admiring photos of Ted Williams’ elegant swing in a mini-shrine devoted to the great batsman, we noticed Ray Allen alone on the floor circumnavigating the 3-point arc. I began counting. Before I lost interest, Ray had made 17 of 20 3-point jumpers from

Wig & Penhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15883988890861506854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1636747356450108593.post-1180979572426358162010-07-14T21:56:00.003-04:002010-07-14T22:38:33.188-04:00

Je me souviens! On an extended August weekend in 2002, only nine months before American supermarkets would begin bowdlerizing “French” from French fries after France’s refusal to buy into the mess in Iraq, Amherst, Massachusetts welcomed an unprecedented invasion of Francophiles. More than 1,000 owners and enthusiasts of schlumpy Citroëns descended on Amherst and the University of

Wig & Penhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15883988890861506854noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1636747356450108593.post-81307192300983523722010-07-12T17:30:00.044-04:002010-11-08T09:39:33.775-05:00

Lately I’ve been listening to Charles Ives’ Holidays Symphony, a compelling four-movement evocation of Washington’s Birthday, Memorial Day, July 4th, and Thanksgiving Day. Ives was a true music revolutionary. Some consider him America’s greatest composer. Ives’ movements often begin contemplatively and build, sometimes fitfully, to crazy-quilt climaxes of multiple American musical themes.  The

Wig & Penhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15883988890861506854noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1636747356450108593.post-219622181836426002010-06-28T15:30:00.014-04:002010-06-28T16:23:46.407-04:00

The previous Wig & Pen entry touching on Nikita Khrushchev evoked the childhood reminiscence below. That’s not Mr.Yetvin in the above photo, but my grandfather, Abraham Isaac Sandman. Like Yetvin and Nikita Khrushchev, he spoke fluent Russian, was built close to the ground, and exuded a peasant’s unstuffiness. Unlike Yetvin, Zadie saw the glass as half full. For him, an indispensible

Wig & Penhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15883988890861506854noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1636747356450108593.post-31840920755855217422010-06-23T22:12:00.025-04:002010-11-06T18:30:24.537-04:00

Take two and call your lobotomist in the morning. In a classic psych experiment, about half of a subject group charged with counting a basketball team’s passes in the half court failed to notice the accomplice in the gorilla suit who briefly strode onto the court. A presumably honest Hillary Clinton remembered sniper fire overhead when touching down in her 1996 visit to Tuzla in war-torn Bosnia.

Wig & Penhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15883988890861506854noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1636747356450108593.post-62222759145453959892010-06-21T12:08:00.006-04:002010-06-22T10:54:29.848-04:00

Wig & Pen grieves in reporting the passing of Gary Shider, a.k.a. Diaperman, a.k.a. Starchild, a mainstay in George Clinton’s wondrous troupe, Parliament Funkadelic (a.k.a. P-Funk). Mr. Shider, a vocalist and guitarist, earned his moniker by performing for decades in just a diaper. I got to see him for the first and last time in February, when my son dragged me to Funkadelic’s standing-room-only

Wig & Penhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15883988890861506854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1636747356450108593.post-88486512000881660482010-06-19T21:04:00.015-04:002010-06-20T01:53:59.158-04:00

On June 7th , Amherst’s Select Board voted unanimously to adopt a resolution that prohibits the town from selling or buying goods or services to or from Arizona. The resolution also encourages Amherst’s residents and businesses to do the same. Thus, the town has responded to Arizona’s notorious “immigration” law, which gives police extraordinary powers to demand proof of identification by birth

Wig & Penhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15883988890861506854noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1636747356450108593.post-633493535404145182010-06-14T10:40:00.015-04:002010-06-20T00:21:46.689-04:00

With a trifecta of casinos in the offing for Massachusetts, will the state’s wager on casino gambling prove to be an investment in Faustian economics? Without question, the state’s balance sheet and several local communities will benefit. But there will be collateral damage. If you or your loved ones are among the body count, be sure to tell your nearest chapter of Gamblers Anonymous that Wig &

Wig & Penhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15883988890861506854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1636747356450108593.post-86083459630748077372010-06-02T16:50:00.004-04:002010-06-02T17:53:01.882-04:00

Ten years ago over my morning coffee at Rao’s in Amherst, I looked up to see my friend Bruce Teague flipping through what appeared to be a Lands End catalog. That seemed a tad out of place for Bruce, who usually dressed with Franciscan abandon. I should mention that Father Bruce was at the time head priest at St. Brigid’s, Amherst’s largest Catholic Church. At Bruce’s table, much more came to

Wig & Penhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15883988890861506854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1636747356450108593.post-81634467625557650002010-05-25T15:27:00.009-04:002010-05-26T10:38:11.948-04:00

One of the odder hypotheses in Mindless Eating—Brian Wansink's book on the behavioral traps that lead to unwise eating habits—involves those orange jump suits worn by prisoners. Wansink contends that weight gain associated with extended prison stays may have as much to do with prison wear as with the usual suspects—lack of exercise and starchy prison diets. That’s because loose fitting orange

Wig & Penhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15883988890861506854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1636747356450108593.post-80152414562937462402010-05-18T15:51:00.006-04:002010-05-20T11:48:15.562-04:00

Two weeks before this year’s graduation ceremonies at my university, parking-meter-shaped Purell dispensers like the one above began popping up on campus. They are artifacts from last year’s H1N1 preventive campaign that have earned a future in my university’s public heath initiatives. Graduating students at commencement ceremonies would do well to take them and hand sanitization more seriously

Wig & Penhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15883988890861506854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1636747356450108593.post-53429486044798290812010-05-16T21:59:00.007-04:002010-05-17T12:27:19.467-04:00

Among the more than 100 faculty offices at my school on the UMass Amherst campus, the two depicted above may well be the end points on my building’s Oscar Madison-Felix Unger continuum. The professor sporting the Oscar desk (above left) typically takes care of business without much trouble as long as the work at hand stays in his active working space—i.e., on top of everything else. But

Wig & Penhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15883988890861506854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1636747356450108593.post-46356265872401670532010-04-29T12:43:00.012-04:002010-04-30T15:25:07.132-04:00

                                       What did pioneering social scientist Stanley Milgram and comedian Redd Foxx have in common? Both cried wolf at least once too often. In 1962/63, Milgram gained national notoriety for laboratory experiments that conned subjects into believing that they were administering electric shocks to other subjects to facilitate their learning. (The subjects on the

Wig & Penhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15883988890861506854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1636747356450108593.post-64260244205676702732010-04-25T21:35:00.008-04:002010-04-30T15:26:35.641-04:00

It’s 9 p.m. on Sunday night. You’ve finished the Sunday Times crossword and double acrostic. Time for one more puzzle: When can you park on Amherst, Massachusetts streets with the above-pictured sign? If you’re wavering, that’s just what the good people in Amherst town government who cooked up the signs, hoped you’d do. The signs are in residential neighborhoods just beyond the legions of

Wig & Penhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15883988890861506854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1636747356450108593.post-79232196309910449282010-04-22T20:55:00.001-04:002010-04-22T21:04:10.959-04:00

Last week, I spoke with Moneer Azzam, president and CEO of SolarOne Solutions in Needham, Massachusetts. SolarOne makes solar powered street lamps and other solar powered outdoor lighting. Every SolarOne lamp is a self-contained lighting system that functions independently of electrical grids. Developing Nations/Rural Communities Will Leapfrog. As with cell phones, the lamps allow communities

Wig & Penhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15883988890861506854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1636747356450108593.post-72066844920575817272010-04-16T15:13:00.009-04:002010-04-19T14:22:57.150-04:00

To these ears, Malian diva Rokia Traore’s April 14th concert at the University of Massachusetts Fine Arts Center defied expectations. With her deft ensemble arrangements, strategic incorporation of Western harmonies and scales, and acoustic-electric hybrids, she has created her own unique sound of—dare I say?—Malian chamber music (albeit with Western touches). No surprise with that: during her

Wig & Penhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15883988890861506854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1636747356450108593.post-72333207689942606062010-04-13T11:39:00.008-04:002010-04-22T22:41:41.378-04:00

And I thought that the trampoline was always with us. Apparently like Duct Tape and WD-40, it was invented. Today’s NY Times obit offers a rousing tribute to its inventor and chief proselytizer—George Nissen—who I hope now saltates in a better place. Was Mr. Nissen a gymnast-entrepreneur or an entrepreneur-gymnast? Without question, the synthesis of nylon was an enabling factor (superseding

Wig & Penhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15883988890861506854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1636747356450108593.post-65055307691490985192010-04-08T15:24:00.008-04:002010-04-08T16:07:12.717-04:00

The Daily Hampshire Gazette notes three households with two lawn signs in Hadley, Massachusetts, each supporting opposing candidates in the forthcoming April 13 election for school committee. In the photo above, Joyce Chunglo supports incumbent Thomas Waskiewicz, while her husband, Daniel, favors challenger Molly Keegan. Of her husband, Chunglo, who is chairwoman of the town’s Board of Selectmen

Wig & Penhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15883988890861506854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1636747356450108593.post-55087047711259835762010-04-01T16:26:00.006-04:002010-04-01T16:42:03.034-04:00

Northern Ireland has a long cultural tradition of expressing sociopolitical messages through murals. Two muralists from Belfast, Danny Devanny and Mark Ervine, once practiced their craft separately on opposite sides of Northern Ireland's sociopolitical divide. Today, they frequently collaborate on murals that emphasize cultural unity and respect for diversity in Northern Ireland and elsewhere.

Wig & Penhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15883988890861506854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1636747356450108593.post-22158820709873038822010-03-30T14:38:00.003-04:002010-03-30T14:44:38.607-04:00

The Book of Esther is the Bible's only book named for a woman.

Wig & Penhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15883988890861506854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1636747356450108593.post-15694228304373055652010-03-26T17:10:00.010-04:002010-03-29T16:22:51.715-04:00

Several years ago I purchased a siphon pump from my local hardware store. With the halo of 9/11 still luminous, American flag waving remained all the rage—for American businesses as well. Displaying the flag at one’s place of business was a no-brainer, but for many firms, putting flag images on their packaging was more challenging--because most American firms no longer make anything. Not a

Wig & Penhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15883988890861506854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1636747356450108593.post-9648882947084909932010-03-23T16:20:00.009-04:002010-03-29T14:32:12.675-04:00

var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www.");document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E"));try {var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-15470190-1");pageTracker._trackPageview();} catch(err) {}“The Lust for me; the Sloth for him,” an auburn-haired college sophomore urged a

Wig & Penhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15883988890861506854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1636747356450108593.post-65767888255434623392010-03-22T12:01:00.007-04:002010-03-22T16:48:17.133-04:00

Click here for a piece that I wrote last week about a real-time cross-cultural negotiation exercise between UMass Isenberg School MBA students and their counterparts in an economics class at Shanghai Normal University.

Wig & Penhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15883988890861506854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1636747356450108593.post-15842583010442735032010-03-19T15:13:00.010-04:002010-03-21T13:51:43.511-04:00

This blog installment means neither to praise nor dis the burgeoning craft of branding. What a growth industry it has become! Just like power tools, ping pong balls, universities, and New Age retreats, individuals have their own brands too. What hopes I had for the improvement of my own personal brand 13 years ago after discovering Tom Peters’ heady article, The Brand Called You !But even though

Wig & Penhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15883988890861506854noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1636747356450108593.post-63065334467114557372010-03-16T16:25:00.005-04:002010-03-20T10:30:38.357-04:00

Malian singer-songwriter-guitarist Habib Koite is playing the Iron Horse this Sunday at 7 p.m. His ensemble, Bamada, is one of Mali’s tightest, most accomplished bands. Here’s a link to my review of their concert in Shelburne Falls from several years back. You could do worse than spending time with them at the Horse this Sunday.

Wig & Penhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15883988890861506854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1636747356450108593.post-91841440836064827702010-03-16T14:48:00.008-04:002010-03-30T09:45:04.605-04:00

When times get tough, the tough get tapping.Maple Syrup and Tombstones: Cemetery, East Street, Petersham, MassachusettsWorcester Telegram & Gazette (T&G Staff/Christine Peterson)

Wig & Penhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15883988890861506854noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1636747356450108593.post-63680441473131236572010-03-16T09:52:00.016-04:002010-03-20T10:32:39.133-04:00

After an especially poignant dope slap, the inimitable Curley Howard would sometimes times protest: I’m a victim of coicumstance!Forcibly departed Amherst ex-superintendent Alberto Rodriguez will soon fade from the memory of most Amherstites, but one of his protestations deserves special treatment. It's worthy, I think, of Bartlett’s:I'm a victim of transparency!That was in response to the avid

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