2 Blowhards (Free subscription) | 01/12/2008
Donald Pittenger writes: Dear Blowhards -- Joseph Epstein, University of Chicago graduate, former member of the Northwestern University faculty and for many years editor of American Scholar, holds forth in the Weekly Standard on Ivy League (and ilk) schools and the kind of students that breeze through them. His hook is a David Brooks column on the backgrounds of those in high offices...
2 Blowhards (Free subscription) | 01/12/2008
Donald Pittenger writes: Dear Blowhards -- Have you been in an Apple Store recently? You know, the place where one can buy iMacs, iPods, iPhones, iThises, iThats and iEtceteras. To me, there's something curiously off-putting about an Apple Store. I take that back; I know exactly what it is that's a little off-putting so far as I'm concerned. It's that one can hardly get ten feet into...
2 Blowhards (Free subscription) | 28/11/2008
Donald Pittenger writes: Dear Blowhards -- As many of you know, I'm no longer much of a movie viewer. But yesterday my wife and daughter dragged me off to see Quantum of Solace, the latest James Bond flick. Now I feel even older and more out of touch than usual. That's because I found the plot difficult to follow (something to do with my hearing?) and, especially, the many action sequences...
2 Blowhards (Free subscription) | yesterday
Donald Pittenger writes: Dear Blowhards -- This post is about architecture and Las Vegas. It's long (thanx to lotsa pix), so if neither topic is your cuppa, you have my permission to skip it. The title of this post is a takeoff from the well-known book Learning from Las Vegas by Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown. I never read it, but it's my understanding that they contended that...
2 Blowhards (Free subscription) | 25/11/2008
Donald Pittenger writes: Dear Blowhards -- Last month, in this post about Ottawa's National Gallery of Canada I mentioned that I visited it beause I wanted to see paintings by the Group of Seven. They, and some associated artists, are well known in Canada but all but invisible "south of the line." Not entirely invisible, because I've spotted copies of this book at some of the better museum...
