Narrow Escapes
Sixty years ago, I narrowly escaped a tortured death. Time, the great healer, has failed to eradicate its memory from my heart. Many times during the night, while I’m sleeping, my dreams flash back to the visions of that horrible scene, and I feel the scorching heat from the tongues of the flames which dance around me. The yells and screams of the Muslim mobs and the cries of our women and children pierce my heart. Drenched in sweat and shivering, I get up from my bed and try to divert my mind to pleasant thoughts and forget the past. However, this scene, etched in my subconscious...
Read MoreCourage
Transcribed from the recently discovered memoir of the late Alonzo Cushing Introduction and transcription by Donna Marie Miller and Adam David Miller Sifting through information on a subject completely different, the 1825 visit of General Lafayette to the little country village of Fredonia, New York, I came upon an interesting entry in the minutes of the Fredonia Scientific and Historical Society, circa 1863. Here at the Barker Historical Museum we get many, many book researchers, who want to see our Civil War collection, and who are extremely excited about anything at all that we can...
Read MoreJane Eyre and Alice
When my mom died, one of the things that nobody else wanted was a copy of Charlotte Bronte’s novel, Jane Eyre, that had been given to my grandmother when she was twelve. I had always been fascinated by my maternal grandmother, Alice, because my mom didn’t remember her much, and she looked so pretty in her wedding picture. My mom looked more like her father, who had huge laughing eyes and a long face. What prettiness she did have was inherited from that lovely, innocent bride who looked at us so sweetly from the sepia-toned wedding portrait. Although her beauty was...
Read MoreInnocence and Esperance
Mark Twain may have written about Innocents Abroad, but when many people write or talk about their times abroad, they often discuss losing their innocence, their sense of naiveté that often accompanies an American citizenship. For example, when I was preparing to go abroad, a good friend of mine, Richard, told me of his own travels in Europe. He spoke of coming home with a new cultural awareness and a vast spiritual awakening — as well as a nasty case of crabs. Innocence lost. Richard advised me to bring to France a journal, to record all of my experiences, and a couple of boxes of...
Read MoreHow I Broke Into New York Fashion
There was no point to sticking around Montreal any longer. It was 1982 and the economy was in the tank. I put all my things in storage, packed up my best clothes and my design portfolio, and caught the Montrealer express train to New York. I remember gazing wistfully over the hardscrabble Pointe St. Charles neighborhood as the train roared south. When we arrived at the U.S. border, I had to show Canadian identification to the U.S. immigration and convince them that I was a U.S. citizen. They held up the train for a long time, deciding what to do about me. Finally, they let me...
Read MoreSarajevo Film Festival Pics, 2010
Gillian Anderson Gillian Anderson Mickey Rourke Oliver Hirschbiegel, director of Five Minutes of Heaven ...
Read More