My daughter, Shannon, a junior at top-ranked Cedarburg High School in Wisconsin, is starting that bewildering rite of passage nearly every young person making the difficult transition to adulthood faces: choosing a college or university. In case her dad and I (often in denial of how rapidly she is growing up and away from us) have not been paying attention, the signs of this tumultuous test are everywhere. Colorful brochures depicting ivory clad walls and sprawling campuses dotted with smiling, freshly scrubbed, youthful faces began arriving last fall. ACT tests are next week. Our investment advisor is talking to us about sources of financial aid and scholarships. Higher education costs […]
Even in death, David Bowie knows how to steal the show. On Sunday at the Grammy’s, Bowie’s last album, Blackstar, won Best Alternative Music Album, Best Engineered Non-Classic Album, and Best Recording Package. His eerie track, No Plan, won Best Rock Song and the video won Best Rock Performance. There are only a handful of rock stars that achieve iconic status as Bowie did. Bowie artfully tested the boundaries of music, fame and even gender, opening our eyes and hearts to wider possibilities in life, art and song. His hits, “Young Americans,” “Changes” and “Heroes” are anthems for the Boomer generation. From a late ’70s perspective, they echo (in my mind, at […]
What would happen if everyone said precisely everything they thought all the time? That was the premise of the popular Jim Carrey movie, Liar, Liar, the tale of a successful lawyer incapable of telling a lie for an entire day due to a birthday wish granted for his son, Max. Carrey’s performance as Fletcher Reede, a lawyer obsessed with his career, shows what can happen to your relationships when bending the truth at the expense of others becomes a way of life. Eventually, his habitual lies catch up with him. Once he finds it impossible to tell a lie, we see Fletcher wrestling with the consequences of his blunt truth-telling, […]