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Venetians Invented the Paperback
In the 15th century a Venetian printer named Aldus Manutius began cranking out small inexpensive books that anyone could carry around, and thus the paperback book was invented.Here's our friend...
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The Culture of Narcissism
A recent opinion article in the NY Times claims that the personality disorder called narcissism might not be a prevalent in the current American generation because these kids have grown up during tough...
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The Rhythm of Life
The leaves are not yet turning here in Central New York, but the temperature has fallen and the the humidity is gone (thank goodness).And school is in session.Although I am in the middle of retiring...
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Why Am I Not Living In Melbourne, Australia?
First to all, it's the rock and roll. No American believes me, but the good rock now comes from Down Under. Give me three of Diesel's albums (and one more song here) on a desert island and I'll live...
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It Takes A Binder
I've started another book. I know this because I've taken a binder (one of those old old clothes covered faded blue ones) and put in separators with color tags which represent chapters.(OK so this...
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Community
Last summer I spent a month in Venice and one night, as a rain storm approached (la tempesta), I had to go out on the tiny balcony and retrieve my laundry. Yes, that's my laundry in the foto below, the...
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Stop, Look, and Listen
Sometimes I am asked to review or write blurbs for books about parents, caretakers, and kids.I have to admit that I haven't read many parenting books, except for two skinny ones on teenagers and how to...
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Made in Itlay
I haven't posted for a while because I had nothing to say....or I was busy. Really, who cares?But then I came across these books about shopping in Florence and they awakened memories of our three...
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Our Baby-Kissing Pope
One Wednesday eighteen months ago in Rome (well, the Vatican City), my daughter and I stood outside the barricades (well, pieces of flimsy wood that we could have broken with our fingers) in Saint...
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Humans on the Move
I just moved to Philadelphia after 29 years in Ithaca, NY. I left this:For this:In Ithaca before I left, and in Philadelphia after I arrived, any number of people asked me why I was doing this. I had...
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Internal Brexit
The U.K leaving the E.U. is a moment in history, and another moment on the passport queue for those leaving the E.U. and going, say, to Scotland.Hardwood Hospital, foto by Abandoned ScotlandBut...
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Babies In Contrasting Western Cultures
We tend to think of Western culture as one big group that stretches from North America across the Atlantic to Europe (and I must include Great Britain separately since they are no longer part of...
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Play Hookey, Please
Psychologist and baby mind expert Alison Gopnik is an anthropologist, even though she might not know it.Ok, so this is Margaret Mead not Alison Gopnik, but you get the point.While reading Gopnik's...
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Not Everyone Wants to be Westernized
It's easy to wear blinders in a cultural way. That's because what we see everyday seems the "normal" way, as if everyone on earth had the same values, experiences, care and woes. It's also easy to...
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Double Clicking But Not With A Mouse
When I was an undergraduate, it was standard fare for students to watch the classic anthropology film called The Hunters. Made in 1957, it was still a revelation when I saw it the first time in 1975....
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Lucy in the Trees Without Diamonds
When I first learned the human fossil record back in my undergraduate days, it was a straight shot from Homohabilis to modern humans. But since then, the path of human evolution has become a tangled...
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Keep Going
It's no secret that Western culture is not exactly the most healthy of places. Sure, we have lots of stuff and lots of food, but our affluence has also brought lots of down time. Or sitting down time....
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Regrets
We all have regrets, and usually they are highly personal. Most of them are about decisions we made long ago and when ruminating (or obsessing) about these regrets, we fantasize that a different choice...
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A Head for the Future
Oh, the endless thinking. The ruminating that never, ever, stops, even when we are asleep. We think and think about the past and the future and often, very often, it takes effort to focus on the...
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The Monkey in the Coal Mine
A recent outbreak of yellow fever in Brazil has resulted in at least 240 human deaths and over 4,400 monkey deaths. The outbreak has also had a secondary fatal effect on the monkeys—people are...
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Baby Food
My daughter’s first solid food, at three months of age, was ossobuco, the Italian dish of meat, wine and vegetables. If we had been Italian, or even visiting Italy, this would have made sense. In...
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The Plague Is Back
As the New Mexico Department of Heath recently reported, the plague is still with us. Three people in New Mexico have become ill with symptoms of plague this year, which means flu-like symptoms and...
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Take a Little Walk With Me
One of the most amazing things humans have ever done is walk around the world.I don't mean one of those adventures where someone walks from Maine to Florida to lose weight, or California to New York...
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The Anthropology of Alzheimers
Anthropologists are not often in the news, and they are even more rarely in the spotlight for discovering what might be a connection between a human ill and how other people live. But anthropologist...
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