I drove to Hershey, PA to see Kurt Browning for one last time with Stars on Ice on June 4, 2023. I think I first saw him skate live almost 30 years ago. This man has won figure skating world championships both with and without figures. I just saw him land four double axels; for
The newly abridged, one-night version of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child opened on Broadway on November 12, 2021. During the coronavirus lockdown, the creators of the show condensed the original two plays, which total 5 hours and 15 minutes, into a single two-act play, totaling 3 hours 30 minutes. I had the privilege of watching
It’s wild when figure skaters good enough for internationals are just as good at other skills. I loved the fresh writing in this memoir by the first U.S. female skater to come out while still competing. If you remember any freedance from U.S. Nationals from the past couple of years, chances are you remember Manta
Well, I’ve got to give it to her. She’s done it again. In this post-TERFpocalypse economy, it is, of course, not a good thing to give money to Rowling. Yes, I read a purchased copy of The Christmas Pig. In an unsatisfactory sort of compromise that doesn’t actually help, I’ll just jot down a few
Dumbledore: The Life and Lies of Hogwarts’s Renowned Headmaster: An Unofficial Exploration by Irvin Khaytman. Hardcover, $16.99. I thought I knew the Harry Potter series pretty well. Then I read Irvin Khaytman’s book, Dumbledore: The Life and Lies of Hogwarts’s Renowned Headmaster, an Unofficial Exploration, and realized that my Snape-centric view of the series had
Reading Troubled Blood by J.K. Rowling feels a bit like having dinner with a relative or old friend whose politics have grown hopelessly toxic. You remember why you loved this person so deeply for so long, but you’re more certain than ever that you were right to block them on social media. The advance reports
The Bluebeard plotline of this deft and subtle book is the one that haunted me and kept me going, even though the anxiety of coronavirus social distancing interrupted my reading and spread it out over weeks. This must have been a difficult book to write. The horror in it is buried deep and handled masterfully.
Prairie Lotus by Linda Sue Park. Published March 3, 2020. Linda Sue Park must have read and loved Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House books as much as I did as a kid. Reading about Hanna in Prairie Lotus hits some deep emotional beats I remember living through with Laura: School trouble. Recitations. Hoop skirts going through doorways. Oranges.
Masterful: Severus Snape, A Jar of Cockroaches, and Me by Logospilgrim, published January 28, 2020. Order from Lulu.com, $18.50. Also available from Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Stories change according to who’s doing the reading. The character of Snape is certainly not for everybody. Is he irredeemable? Brave? Irrelevant? A source of strength? As Logospilgrim
Warning: Spoilers for the film. Greta Gerwig’s adaptation of Little Women speaks from the exact moment that some of us are in, American female-identified writers 150 years after Louisa May Alcott struck it rich with this book. With a deliberate hand, Gerwig amplifies or inserts elements she considers important, and outright changes what does not serve
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