January 20 marks the 127th anniversary of the patenting of the roller coaster. These scream-inducing attractions have spread all over the world and endured their own peaks and troughs of popularity, but you can’t tell the story without talking about Queens, where a pioneer of…
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January 15 marks the birthday of one of the greatest drummers of all time: Gene Krupa.Born in Chicago in 1909, Krupa had been groomed for the priesthood by his parents, but decided to go his own way. He started playing the instrument in the 1920s and his powerful, busy drumming…
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I recently read Wherever I Wind Up: My Quest for Truth, Authenticity and the Perfect Knuckleball by New York Mets pitcher and Cy Young Award winner R. A. Dickey. Mr. Dickey’s story is not the typical athlete’s tale of success. He had many obstacles in his upbringing to overcome…
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The houses in Moonrise Kingdom look like advent calendars, tiny compartments filled with toys. There are bird costumes and a raccoon cap and an ancient phonograph that runs on batteries. You can see every room, because the camera never stops moving, as though the director, Wes…
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Since our move to the country a little over a year ago, we have been fortunate enough to have lots of land, which meant that we could have an even bigger garden than we had in our plot at the Community Garden in Great Neck. This turned out to be a very good thing, because I find…
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