52 Westminster Street cleaned up

by | Jun 14, 2007 | Urban Compass

Volunteers with the Springfield Preservation Trust recently met up at 52 Westminster Street for a cleanup, in tandem with the city putting the property up for bid. Resident and SPT board member/treasurer Michael Marcinkewich documented the visit and provided the...

The Limits of Reflection

by | Jun 14, 2007 | The Public Humanist

By Joe Cruz In the wake of half chagrined confessions that I am a philosophy professor, not infrequently — and positively reliably on cramped airplanes — I’m asked what my personal philosophy is. It’s not an entirely unreasonable question....

Campfire Jazz

by | Jun 14, 2007 | Arts

Jazz, after World War II, lost some of its sense of fun—Ornette Coleman isn't generally played at barbecues. Masters like Coltrane played gorgeous, sophisticated music, but it wasn't exactly fun. Gypsy jazz, on the other hand, often induces helpless...

A Long Time Ago, in a Multiplex Not So Far Away

by | Jun 14, 2007 | Arts

Star Wars opened on May 25, 1977, the day after my tenth birthday. It changed me and my world.I saw it a few weeks after it opened; nothing my friends had said prepared me for how utterly gobsmacked the movie left me. The movie made the crappy multiplex I was watching...