On Writing Letters

For years I wrote letters. “Have you ever heard of The Collected Phone Calls of Gertrude Stein?” Rita Mae Brown says in Starting from Scratch. “Writers should learn to write letters and save the telephone for business.” I took her words to...

Big Brother Wears Glasses

Sometimes profound social change happens so fast no one is prepared for the new reality (yep, Future Shock, still relevant). I assumed Google Glass would fizzle out because its wearers look absurd. But then again, so do those bizarre pointy shoes some women still...
Adam and Steve

Adam and Steve

Despite the oft-recited adage of the anti-gay contingent, sometimes it really is Adam and Steve, not Adam and Eve. That’s the case with PVPA’s production of The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told, which follows the couples Adam and Steve and Jane and Mabel from...
Heritage and the Diocese

Heritage and the Diocese

In the late 19th century, the Lyman Street area of downtown Holyoke underwent a significant change. Once home to Irish immigrants, who’d arrived in the city in the 1840s to work on its dams and canals, the neighborhood now began to be dominated by Polish...