April 25-29, 2016 This week, Veronique Greenwood’s glancing knowledge of Mandarin becomes a daunting challenge, spurred on by some tentative communicative exchanges in China. Some argue that Shakespeare couldn’t have written some of his plays because the author of the plays knew too much. There’s another explanation: Perhaps he acted like a journalist. Helen bore […]
Month: April 2016
This post first ran on January 15, 2013. This morning I awoke to the kind of day that offers an easy excuse to skip the walk. The temperature gauge read -3F (-19C) when I crawled out of bed, and by the time I’d finished the tea and hot porridge my husband had prepared, it was still only […]
I’ll start this at the beginning. Recently Friend of LWON, Chris Arnade, posted a picture of himself — which itself was not unusual because Chris is, among other things, a photographer and posts pictures of himself right along with pictures of other people. But the picture was unusual. Chris is a very serious guy and always […]
I love snow and cold (although I hate ice) and, for the most part, this winter did not come through for me. But there was one exception: a blizzard in late January that dumped a couple of feet of snow on Washington. I ran around in the snow with dogs and did snow angels and […]
This past Saturday, the world celebrated the birthday of a guy named William Shakespeare. He was born in Stratford-on-Avon in England on April 23, 1564, and died on or about the same date in 1616. Pretty much every reputable Shakespeare scholar and literary historian argues—based on historical evidence—that this William Shakespeare was the author, alone […]
This is the second in a series of posts about learning a foreign language long past the age when it comes naturally (if you missed it, here is part 1 ). Guest Veronique Greenwood begins at the pro level, with Chinese. A month into learning Mandarin, I notice that something has changed. When I am out riding my […]
April 18 – 22, 2016 Guest Veronique Greenwood starts the week with the first in a three-part series of posts about learning Chinese. (Look for the next installment on Monday.) Erik doesn’t like parenting books, except when he does. And he really likes The Informed Parent. (But he still doesn’t know how to set up […]
I’m a recent convert to Instagram as my main form of social media. After spending a lot of the day reading and writing, listening and talking, sometimes I just can’t take any more words. Facebook sometimes seems too complicated, Twitter too fast—but looking at images feels restful. I’ll follow most anything—photos of kids, vacation scenery, […]