Celebrate May Day with this passage from “Grapes of Wrath,” which emphasizes how vital work is to our sense of self respect.
Steinbeck reminds us that it is not only people of color who have had their voting rights infringed.
Life today is a far cry from the Great Depression, but Steinbeck’s “Grapes of Wrath” is still relevant.
Steinbeck and the Beowulf poet both point out that piling up wealth does not lead to happiness.
NPR’s Studio 360 sponsored a “literary cocktail” contest. We share here some of the highlights.
Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Age of Innocence, Bonfire of the Vanities, Cat's Cradle, Dougas Adams, Edith Wharton, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Great Gatsby, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, John Steinbeck, Kurt Vonnegut, My Antonia, Talented Mr. Ripley, Tom Wolfe, Willa Cather |
Yesterday’s Supreme Court decision upholding Obamacare had all the makings of a Hollywood thriller.
Posted in Destry Rides Again (film), Hannah and Her Sisters (film), Hunt for Red October (film), It's a Wonderful Life (film), Shane (film), Sting (film) | Also tagged Destry Rides Again, Film, Hannah and Her Sisters, Hunt for Red October, It's a Wonderful Life, Obama Care, Shane, Sting, Supreme Court |
“The Hunger Games” captures how my students see the contemporary job situation.
Economics teacher Steve Ziliak uses Steinbeck’s “Grapes of Wrath” to teach the human side of microeconomics.
Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath” allows us to see some of the dynamics that the tough new anti-immigration law in Alabama has set into play.
Two images came to mind as I twice watched the Japanese soccer team rebound from deficits. One was from Alain’s Renais’s film “Hiroshima Mon Amour” where we see grass clawing its way back in the city streets on the day following the atom bomb. The other was of the tortoise crossing the road in “Grapes of Wrath.”
Yet having nothing, the Joads still share. In the final scene of The Grapes of Wrath, Steinbeck taps into the legend of “Roman Charity” where a daughter breastfeeds her starving father. In this case, however, Rose of Sharon feeds a starving stranger. A new human family is rising out of the ashes of the old.
My novelist friend Rachel Kranz recently sent me an article by novelist William Kennedy about John Steinbeck’s self-doubts as a writer. She herself has been wrestling with self-doubts, even though she has a completed manuscript of what I think is a remarkable work, and the article lets her know that she is not alone. It [...]
“I’m shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!” Captain Renault famously exclaims in Casablanca, only then to be secretly presented with a bribe from the winnings. Why did this scene come to mind when I heard about the shenanigans of Goldman Sachs this past week? It did so, I suspect, because [...]
Ma, Tom, and Pa Joad in John Ford’s Grapes of Wrath I don’t know a lot about the details of the Massey coal mining accident that killed 29 miners in West Virginia last week, but, from what I’ve been able to make out, it was a non-union mine owned by a heavily fined company that [...]
Sports Saturday Once again March Madness is gripping America. Once again we see Cinderella teams upsetting the giants (Northern Iowa upsetting top-seeded Kansas, Butler upsetting mighty Syracuse) and games won or lost on remarkable shots made in the waning seconds (Murray State, Michigan State). Maryland, the team I was rooting for, made a miraculous last [...]
