John Updike, 76, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner for fiction whose novels and short stories exposed an undercurrent of ambivalence and disappointment in small-town, middle-class America, died Tuesday of lung cancer in a hospice near his home in Beverly Farms, Mass. ...more

January 28, 2009

It's unclear why American Stage Theatre Co. chose "By the Waters of Babylon" to open its 30th anniversary season. The professional theater company has reached a milestone in longevity and looks forward to a new home in 2009. Surely it deserves better than Robert Schenkkan's trite drama about a Cuban-dissident-turned-gardener and a kooky Texas widow. ...more

September 23, 2008

Last week was vacation time for me, and it featured a family trip to the Southwest, including the Grand Canyon, San Diego and a stop at Disneyland in Anaheim. The original Disney complex, which opened in 1955, pales in comparison to our Disneyworld in Orlando that came along some 16 years later. ...more

August 13, 2008