Compass A&E

Found poetry has always fascinated me. The first poem I published was “Three Pages Found in a Bureau for Auction,” sourced from three pages of stationery I discovered in a bureau I didn’t buy — but I did take the pages, which made me feel guilty, although not enough to keep me from writing the poem. 

This poem is an excellent entrance point into Emily Dickinson’s work; it shows off the two things she does best. First, the slow realization that life is both utterly fulfilling AND sad, somehow all at once.

I will go out on a not-so-perilous limb and opine that most American police procedural TV shows owe their essential form to the 87th Precinct novels by Ed McBain.

Often, art work that has a social message is so abstract that it’s hard to find a place in.

The work of Glenn Kaino, which is featured in a new show at MASS MoCA that opened April 3, is concrete and accessible while also commenting on the world and the hopes, struggles, dreams, successes and failures of the humans who inhabit it.

The gang’s all there: Shirley Temple, Popeye, Batman, the Simpsons and Betty Boop. Also, The Hulk, Barbie, Wall-E, Harry Potter, G.I. Joe, Charlie McCarthy and Howdy Doody.

There is of course no actual reason to make your own pizza, from a culinary point of view. Your average pizza professional will toss a much better pie than anything you can make in an afternoon at home. 

They come together, one right after the other: Easter, Mud Season and Spring Vacation. These are all occasions that parents/grandparents either love or dread, when there are multiple children indoors running around together, often with sugar in their bloodstream.

Connecticut counts as part of New England but most of the foods that are considered Typical New England Cooking are, pretty much, rarely-if-ever served here. Pot roast, perhaps. But brown bread and baked beans? Not so much.