Back in 1974, I was a high school senior courting a girl who was in the drama club and who aspired to a career in the theater. To impress her, I saved my shekels and bought two tickets to a performance of Noel Coward’s Private Lives when it was at the Blackstone Theatre. It starred […]

By the wonders of technology I’m posting from a Peter Pan motor coach (the founder of the bus line was named Peter), making a nearly two-hour trip from Woods Hole, Massachusetts, where we just got off a ferry boat from Martha’s Vineyard. We’re headed to Boston’s South Station, where we’ll catch a cab to our […]

Last week I was at the 12th Annual North American Passive House Conference in Seattle. The event is produced by the Passive House Institute US (PHIUS)—I’ve been a board member or employee of PHIUS off and on for the better part of 15 years now. Every year, the event brings together building science geeks to […]

Awhile back I posted about Hillbilly Elegy, a book that has gotten a lot of attention and raised a lot of hackles. Author J.D. Vance tells the story of his upbringing in Ohio, and of his forbears and other family members’ roots in Appalachia. The people Vance describes initially thrived in industrial Ohio, but eventually […]

Earlier this year Beth gave her senior writers at the Chicago Cultural center this prompt: My Favorite Year. Anu Agrawal chose 1969, when she and her husband immigrated from India. Anu shared her reminiscences about seeing the lakefront for the first time, the museums, and Marshall Field’s here at the Safe & Sound blog back […]