Never a time so sweet
Well, friends, this is it. Its been a good run, but Horseradish now signs off for good. Before this school year even started, I had wondered many times how I would feel writing my last piece, and just what I would want to say to you when this occasion finally came. Let me assure you that, even after three prolific years of writing columns for The Hoot, I am very much at a loss for words. I hope the following will suffice…
Oh, snap! Youve got to be kidding me
What still gives you the giddy sense of wonder and excitement you had as a little kid? Hypersonic jets? Men on the moon? Ultra-fast trains levitated by magnets? How about flying cars? Not too many things, Ill bet.
Imagine what the view might be like from the 142nd floor of a glass skyscraper. Imagine taking the fastest elevator in the world to get there. Picture a needle-shaped structure with between 163 and 216 floors. The height: From 2600 to over 3000 feet;
the exact figures are being kept secret. This is real…
Prayer for a millennium
Come, friends, and, in the closing light of day,
take up the brick and set it while you may;
and thus, in laying brick on brick, assemble
the future now, and its foundation lay…
Iliveinacity: Noburdenforshoulderssobig
I live in a city, yes I do, made by human hands.
–Malvina Reynolds
Come witness remarkable moments in the great cities we call home…
and the people who made them. Third in a series.
Pungent and loud in flavor, sprouting un-self-consciously from the plains, reaching and growing as high as it can: Chicago.
TrueStoryTheater leaves identity at the checkpoint
A bomb explodes in the street outside the museum.
The boy gazes out at the violence, then back at the exhibit: “The street looks just the same as this;
my God, I can't get out…!” He is part of the exhibit now, trapped inside the glass.
“Stay in here,” his father says. “Stay here behind the glass of fear and memory…”
Iliveinacity: Chroniclesofatowninmotion
I live in a city, yes I do, made by human hands.
–Malvina Reynolds
Come witness remarkable moments in the great cities we call home…
and the people who made them. Second in a series.
Miracles and paradoxes abound in San Francisco: A city in constant motion, born in the confluence of events, challenged in tragedy, and re-conceived in fantasy and hope…
Iliveinacity: Pastelongreencanvas
I live in a city, yes I do, made by human hands.
–Malvina Reynolds
Come witness remarkable moments in the great cities we call home…
and the people who made them. First in a series.
How you see Miami just depends on when and where you choose to look
EAT ME! (Pardon my bad taste)
Suppose you are a cannibal. Youre feeling real hungry one night when some random stranger appears at your door. Just what would this poor soul need to say to convince you not to eat him?
When God played with matches
They settled these atolls, finding their way by charts made of sticks tied together. The people of the Marshall Islands invented three kinds of stick-charts: The mattang and medo, depicting the wave patterns around island clusters;
and the rebillit, showing the positions of islands relative to each other. They populated two parallel island chains, which they called Ratak and Ralik: Sunrise and sunset.
Bikini Atoll acquired notoriety far beyond becoming the namesake of the two-piece swimsuit when our nation, after relocating the local population to nearby Rongerik Atoll, began a long series of atomic tests in 1946. It would be temporary, the Bikinians were told, and for the benefit of mankind…
The[n-y-c]files: Themanwhodrovethebumsout
Come find out what you cant know;
see whats not there.
Its no more, but it used to be
In humanitys hometown;
you know where.
These are the [n-y-c] files.(Third in a series)
Picture, if you possibly can, a nation fallen on hard times such as our generation has never known, a quarter of its workforce unemployed. Imagine its largest city, home to millions of new Americans, their hard-won financial gains immeasurably set back in the worst economic cataclysm of the century. Suppose there lives a stocky man, barely five feet tall… Winning the hearts of millions and a permanent place in a citys history and collective consciousness, he becomes a figure whose very name remains a household word to New Yorkers, young and old alike, to this day. The name: LaGuardia.
What'sGoin'On? BBSOstagesaKwanzaacoup
What happens when students planning a celebration abandon the tried-and-true formula? What if ambition overreaches against long odds? What if its staged two days before finals in a hall thats a little too large? And just what is Kwanzaa anyway?
Its the show that stole the semester…
The [n-y-c] files: DtraintoStillwellAvenue
Come find out what you cant know;
see whats not there.
Its no more, but it used to be
In humanitys hometown;
you know where.
These are the [n-y-c] files.(Second in a series)
Most historians believe Dutch settlers first named it Conyne Eylandt (Rabbit Island) for the wild rabbits living there. Others attribute the name to the local Konoh tribe. Some claim the English named it for its cone-shaped hills. Whatever you think you know about Coney Island, its very beginnings illustrate how our view depends on the lens we choose to see it through…
The [n-y-c] files: Whenanickelwasmagic
Come find out what you cant know;
see whats not there.
Its no more, but it used to be
In humanitys hometown;
you know where.
These are the [n-y-c] files.(First in a series)
Ottoman? she asked.
No, automat. Ever heard the word? I must have asked six friends from the New York area, and only one knew what it meant after a hint. Its a sure sign of the times, I guess, when not even New York kids know about it, even though it was once as much a part of their citys daily landscape as the Empire State Building or Ebbets Field…
In the light of Thursday morning
Its an ordinary evening as we sing at Positive Foundations coffeehouse, helping fellow students in their efforts to raise money to fight extreme poverty worldwide. Im performing with the gospel choir, Voices of Praise, and this is my first time singing at Chums. I hear someone speak about how the actions we take today will have an effect on tomorrows world.
Taking a peek into the money-box, I swear I see it instead filled with random things: Some little bag of powder, a thin net, a handful of seeds, a pair of old shoes, and a used book. And I wonder how tomorrow came so fast
I knew that guy was sketchy!
Alright, friends, we need to chill a bit;
I sure do, at least. So, with this installation of Horseradish, I present these two true (and all-too-true) stories of Samoan Sally and The Texas Rubber Round-Up. Make of em what you will.
Our new Brandeis fight-song
Dear Alma Mater, we shall eer be true to you
And well uphold the honor of the white and blue!
And after evry time a victry we have won
Well know our Brandeis pride is what has spurred us on!
So hear our rallying cry as we declare as one:
Our dear old Brandeis, on to greater heights! Fight on!
Breakin it down at the Main Event
What beams with the pride of flags waving, educates us in rhyme and verse, and pulses with tangos yearning? What commands with flamencos exquisite urgency;
rivals salsas exuberant joy;
and curses loudly with the desperation of the street? It is the struggle to break down the barriers that confine us, and it was the theme of this years Main Event show.
Wisdom in shades of grey
Out in the far-western Pacific lies a young nation of widely-scattered islands and coral atolls called the Federated States of Micronesia. It covers an area of ocean as large as the United States, but its total land area is no bigger than Rhode Island. Among the hundreds of flat, ring-shaped atolls are Pingelap and Mokil (Mwoakilloa)… These islands have been of interest to geneticists because of the occurrence of a distinct form of total colorblindness, or achromatopsia, among their small populations…
The story of Lito
All his life he longed for that scene. Or something like it. It came to him only in occasional dreams: That indescribably painful sweetness. Being one of the group, hanging out with friends, belonging. Years would pass, but still those rare dreams would haunt him with their bliss. He would always wake up crying.
Some of you may know him. This is the story of Lito, and how he spent a lifetime searching for that sweet place we all seek. Come, let us walk the streets with him and hear their music. You may hear an oddly familiar tune
Welcome back overseas: AreturntoDaufuskie
In his book, Pat Conroy called it Yamacraw Island to protect its anonymity, knowing that even a place seemingly forgotten by time would need protection from times onslaught. Its true name is Daufuskie: An enchanting, heartbreaking corner of America where agriculture, slavery, history, faith, poverty, real estate, and culture collide.
