By Carol Segal / Manhattan An ongoing series of stories by Insider readers. Do you have a pandemic tale of your own? Please send it to editor@theinsider1.com Written in April 2020 When you live in a New York City apartment and you look at night at the windows of apartment buildings across the street or across the courtyard, it’s like looking at illuminated snapshots formatted on the pages of a photo album. That scene looks like lit-up snippets of a hundred people’s lives. Yet, New Yorkers learn to ignore the people in the windows; we don’t want to invade privacies or be inappropriately observed ourselves. We try to respect everybody’s right to live their lives freely with the shades up. But during every evening’s 7:00-7:02 p.m. “Essential Workers Appreciation Clap,” the rules are changed. People are leaning out of those windows, reaching hands out to make noise, waving and smiling. We shout our thanks to the bus drivers who pass by, the food delivery men on bicycles, the doormen, the officers in New York Police Department squad cars, the taxi drivers. For the first time ever, we are reaching toward each other from inside our windows, seeing faces we never saw before. On one such night, I see the head monk step out the front door of the Korean Buddhist Temple that occupies a brownstone directly across the street from me. The rarely seen abbot is standing on his stoop, tapping his meditation bell with a stick as his contribution to the clamor. I catch his attention and raise up my hands to clap directly to him. He mirrors my motion. I clasp my hands together and yell across the street “I see you. Stay strong!” He motions the same back to me. I open my arms wide in a gesture of welcome and inclusiveness. He does the same. I crane my neck to look at the windows above my head and wave to a woman who lives with and takes care of her wheelchair-bound mother. I’d learned days earlier that the older woman asks to be positioned at the window when the clapping begins. Tonight, the daughter draws her mother’s hand to extend outside the window so that I may see that she is there and enjoying the sound of the people. I rarely think to open my kitchen window because it faces the back of the building, a rather dark and gloomy interior courtyard of brick walls and pigeon poop-covered air conditioners. But tonight, my spirit is on fire because the human connection is pulsing strong and alive.  I hear clapping and pot-banging from this side of my building, too, and the energy compels me to open my bleak kitchen window and stick my head out. This has me facing another side of my own building where I see into the window of my 88-year-old widowed neighbor sitting at his dinner table, still grieving the loss of his wife, suffering from the effects of Parkinson’s disease, often sad and lonely in his daily life. His home healthcare aide catches sight of me, raises the shades all the way up so that the elderly gentleman can see me, and I throw kisses to both of them. Something makes me look upward to the window of new tenants who just moved in last week, and a strange woman is standing there. I motion to her to open her window.  I yell “We welcome you!” The woman clasps her hands to her chest in thanks. I yell “When this is all over, we will get acquainted over a glass of wine!” and she yells back “And I will hug you!” I don’t even know her name. From my kitchen window, I can also see the back of another brick building full of windows and vertical columns of small balconies. After the two-minute applause-fest, a man on his terrace sings one song each night on a microphone, accompanying himself on his electric guitar. One evening it was Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah.” Tonight, it is “Let It Be.” He sings off tune much of the time, but his passion is palpable. Although I cannot see him from where I am, I yell my “thank you” multiple times toward the brick facade, hoping that my voice echoes and bounces from building to building, and that he may hear my faceless appreciation. This nightly tradition has become an increasingly loud and passionate roar of encouraging voices, cowbells, spoons hit against pots, whistles, honking cars, whoops and hollers, even tambourine-shaking. It has heightened my consciousness of the human spirit. We New Yorkers know that we are at the epicenter of this most virulent storm. We know that as we cheer to see each other from our windows, the body bags are piling up across the park. The human race has been knocked to its knees and is fighting for its life. Yet, for two minutes every night between 7:00 and 7:02 p.m., we are looking hard for each other in our snapshot windows, we are reaching out to one another while staying far apart, and in these bizarre times of forced distancing and isolation, we’ve never felt closer. Born and raised in Portland, OR, Carol danced with the Portland Ballet Company for six years. After moving to New York City in 1979 and marrying a musician a few years later, she built a flourishing career as a personal trainer. Her business has spanned four decades and continues to this day, now specializing as a senior citizen fitness consultant. Two children and three grandchildren later, she is a published memoir essayist: “25 Miles to Go Now” Feminine Collection , 2018; “Warm Bread,” The Cooks Cook, 2023. Her first novel is nearing completion.

By John Woodford / Ann Arbor, Mich. NAACP leader Derrick Johnson decided that President Trump would be the first president to be uninvited to address the civil rights organization This June, the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) announced that for the first time in its 116-year history, it would not invite the sitting US president or vice president to address its annual convention. In justifying its unprecedented decision, NAACP president and CEO Derrick Johnson used some militant-sounding rhetoric. He accused President Donald Trump of “attacking our democracy and our civil rights,” of believing “more in the fascist playbook than in the U.S. Constitution,” of signing “unconstitutional executive orders to oppress voters and undo civil rights protections,” of “illegally turn[ing] the military on our communities,” and of “personally benefit[ing] from the U.S. government.” Neither Johnson nor I can declare, without a judicial ruling, that Trump has committed an “unconstitutional” or an “illegal act.” But while I agree with the gist of Johnson’s criticisms of the president, I maintain that the NAACP’s non-invitation is an instance of folding up one's tent and retreating before a battle rather than an example of defiance or dissent. Unlike the universities, corporate media, white-shoe law firms or other institutions that have buckled under Trump’s actions and threats to hurt them economically, the NAACP was under no such pressure, so far as the public knows. Furthermore, the seeming snub is probably just what Trump would hope for, much like Brer Rabbit’s being thrown into other briar patch. The president was freed of the burden of even having to feign a respect for law, fairness and progress against historic injustice. Even African leaders whose homelands Trump has called “shitholes” have sat down to negotiate with him, not because they like or admire him but because they’re realistic that he’s someone to be reckoned with because of the office he holds and the power still inherent in that position. So they hold their noses, display the maturity and discipline required of leaders, and do the best they can for the people they represent by negotiating with Trump and his retinue. In modern times, President Ronald Reagan was perhaps the “free world” leader most associated with political views and moves that were hostile and damaging to the interests of Black Americans. But when presidents speak publicly on democratic freedoms and civil rights, they know the nation and world are listening, and they, or their speechwriters, tend to want to look as honorable as they can. As the following excerpt shows, Reagan presented himself as a champion of what today might be called Diversity, Equity and Inclusion when he addressed the NAACP at its convention on June 29, 1981 : "A few isolated groups in the backwater of American life still hold perverted notions of what America is all about. Recently, in some places in the nation there's been a disturbing reoccurrence of bigotry and violence.… If I were speaking to them instead of to you, I would say to them, “You are the ones who are out of step with our society. You are the ones who willfully violate the meaning of the dream that is America. And this country, because of what it stands for, will not stand for your conduct.” My Administration will vigorously investigate and prosecute those who, by violence or intimidation, would attempt to deny Americans their constitutional rights." When staunch reactionaries among a right-wing president’s supporters hear such words, they may feel dismayed, or they may dismiss such comments as a smokescreen their leader was wise to deploy. But many moderate voters agree with those sentiments and even expect their leader to live up to them. The NAACP, however, has freed Trump and his image-makers from having to decide whether to take the high road or go low. Trump improved his vote totals among Black, Hispanic and Asian men and women in 2024 versus 2020 election, but the NAACP’s snub is unlikely to weaken his support from this voting bloc because a non-event has no impact. Instead, the NAACP’s refusal to engage with the White House is more likely to increase the apathy that has infected so many voting-age U.S. citizens of all backgrounds rather than overcome it. Before Reagan’s speech at its convention, the heads of the NAACP back then, Benjamin Hooks, and Margaret Bush Wilson, the first woman to chair the group’s national board, met with the president in the Oval Office to iron out the details of his appearance. But such formalities did not prevent Wilson from expressing her assessment of Reagan’s record when she introduced him. According to historian Gil Troy, whose 2007 book Morning in America depicts Reagan as a unifying communicator, Wilson did not shy away from declaring her opposition to his politics: “When she [Margaret Bush Wilson] introduced him before his speech to the NAACP's 1981 national convention in Denver, she openly attacked him for reviving ‘war, pestilence, famine and death,’ visibly upsetting Reagan and his wife Nancy Reagan.” But Wilson was the kind of gutsy, effective civil rights leader in short supply today. Two years after the Reagan speech, she temporarily ousted Hooks as the NAACP president, citing his incompetence and possible malfeasance in several areas. But the organization’s board — yet another example of an “old-boys network” — overruled her and barred her from speaking at its next convention. She then resigned and returned to practice law in her native St. Louis, until her death at 90 years old in 2019. The NAACP’s decision to silence Trump at its convention was not courageous, wise or effective. If its leader Derrick Johnson truly though the president is following a “fascist playbook,” he would have been doing his organization and the country at large a great service by forcing Trump to run those plays on an open field. John Woodford lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where he retired after two decades as the executive editor of Michigan Today , a University of Michigan alumni/ae publication. His career in journalism includes editing and/or reporting duties for Ebony  magazine, Muhammad Speaks  newspaper, the Chicago Sun-Times , the New Haven Register , the New York Times  and Ford Motor company publications.

By David Weiss / Los Angeles Buddies; Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump in 1997 Irreality. Not existing objectively or in fact. Imaginary. The above word sprung to mind recently when I pondered the tortured topic of Trump/Epstein, or how about just Trumpstein for short? The Twin Towers of Turpitude. Two Terrific Guys. And oh yes, duly convicted sexual offenders to boot -- let’s not forget their hard-won heraldry! True-blue American royalty, they are. USA, USA! But let’s get back to the irreal deal, shall we? Why is this preposterous and depressingly tawdry saga of carnal lust and predatory manipulation so endlessly compelling? Perhaps because it walks such a fine line between fact and fiction, between B-cinema and low-budget pornography, a tale so lurid and grotesque it strains both credulity and common sense. And yet it does distract from minor glitches like the rise of American Fascism and uniformed troops in city streets. Reality is so depressing – I’d sure rather watch The Apprentice Masseuses of West Palm Beach. Let Rome burn – this X-rated sideshow is ratings magic! And unbelievably sad as well. If I may beg your indulgence, I’ve deigned to morph old Sam Coleridge’s trademark theorem into the “willing suspension of belief .” For the last decade, we’ve been shaking our befuddled heads and muttering: “Can this really be happening?” And not just once or a dozen times, but on hundreds of brain-numbing, soul-killing occasions -- institutional erosion, moral lassitude, Lady Justice un-blindfolded and a distressed democracy hijacked by greedy bitcoin-barkers and rapacious Tech-tators . Makes one long for the days of Tricky Dick Nixon and Spiro Agnew, lowly misdemeanor offenders by comparison! Those were the golden days of the Republic, fer lord’s sake. And of course, then you have the most retail-buyable Chief Executive since Sears, Roebuck. Yes, flattery will get you almost everywhere with a textbook narcissist like Herr Trump, but only cold, hard, untraceable cash seals the deal. Transactional they call him, but that euphemism masks the malodorous stench of state corruption and naked self-interest -- rivalling Czar Donald’s trillionaire gangsta pal, aka Vlad the Impaler or the KGB Kid. Not only that, Spymaster V has enough dirt on Dapper Don to launch a poppy farm in Myanmar (which he probably already holds deed to). Jeff Epstein was in the same racket as Vladimir Putin – kompromat , plain and simple. Turning people into assets without them feeling a thing – that takes talent (and pinhole cameras in the walls). And you don’t need Ziggy Freud to tell you that Trump has a bad case of plutocrat/autocrat envy: the yachts, the real estate, the young women, the laundered-loot stolen from beloved Mother Russia – what’s not to admire about Rootin’ Tootin’ Putin? – he’s Al Capone and John Gotti on ketamine and steroids. But perhaps the most baffling phenom of all is that the masculinity-challenged King of Queens unabashedly loves this brutish, police-state murderer -- which should be just enough to keep you up most nights in the coming years. Welcome to the U.S.S.A. – your papers, please? Can you recite The Pledge? Svengali & Maxwell, cruise ship directors Yes, it does strain credulity, the utter decay and demise of an already-suffering democracy in eight brief months. But perhaps the most irreal sideshow of all is the torrid Justice Department love affair with Ghislaine Maxwell, a woman whose very name reeks of arriviste pretension and an effort to “pass” as un-Jewish. She’s so posh, isn’t she – yeah, for a co-dependent rapist! Looking at photos of Epstein are chilling enough – with his narcissistic leer and unctuous pride, but seeing Ghoulish Ghislaine with his furry paw ‘round her neck is like watching reptiles sloshing in the mud of privilege and pleasure without a moment’s regard for the young girls sacrificed in the process. Naked Girl Scout meetings with G. Maxwell as devoted den mother – and then Trump’s lackey lawyer Todd Bland serves her up softball questions with whipped cream and cherries on top – like he’s questioning Mother Teresa and not a convicted pimp and panderer! It just can’t be real – must be a streaming error on YouTube…. And as to whether or not one could actually prove that 00-“17” Jeff Epstein was “intelligence” (as Alex Acosta said), the feline-shrewd daughter of tabloid catch-and-killer, Robert Maxwell, certainly knew the racket when it came to blackmail and oppo-research. Like daughter, like dad – isn’t that sweet? He even named that fancy rowboat he” slipped” off of after little Jilly! Or did Mossad push poor Bobby Maxwell? We’ll likely never know – same for small game hunter, Jeff Epstein, strangled by a pillowcase or was it a handkerchief? Yes, it’s a noble and enduring tradition, the sycophantic alliance between scurrilous sometime-journalists (Rupert, Maxwell, et al) and rich and depraved elites. Flip the coin of a muckraker and you’ve got a spy and vice-versa. They’re basically in the same gumshoe-and-gossip racket and even collaborate with each other covertly when duty or circumstance requires. Does the tender tale of Stormy & Donald ring a bell? Pay the scarlet-lettered paramour for her stony silence, and the paper of wreckage, the National Enquirer , will send the hotcakes-hot copy to the dead letter office, never to sully Uncle Donald’s squeaky-clean rep as, say, “Chief Bra-Strap-Straightener” at the Miss Teen USA Pageant. As he proudly told Howard Stern: “No men are anywhere, and I’m allowed to go in, because I’m the owner of the pageant and therefore I’m inspecting… ‘Is everyone OK?’ You know, they’re standing there with no clothes. ‘Is everybody OK?’ And you see these incredible-looking women, and so I sort of get away with things like that.” Okay, we’re all grownups here, right? So we needn’t be in disbelief or at all shocked by the parasitic appetites of the rich and powerful, those well-accustomed to getting what they want without having to ask first. It’s a breed of slaveholder/patrician entitlement that traditionally came with reliable protection from the prying eyes of the law. Donald Trump behaved like, consorted with and turned a blind eye to fellow rapists like Prince Andrew and Gentleman Jeff Epstein. And as ever, the Alphabet Mafia – FBI, CIA, NSA, etc. -- could be quietly persuaded to look the other way if the word came down -- as it so obviously did to those narcoleptic prison guards tasked with keeping an eye on the esteemed Lolita Airlines executive. Not to mention the shady financiers and politicians, marquee showbiz types and fun-loving academics playing against type. Bill Gates, Stephen Hawking, Al Dershowitz and Bill Clinton? If these minor-league Lotharios are our best and brightest seducers, we are in mortal trouble. BTW, all of them could have outed the creep decades ago -- and saved a few hundred young women along the way. Again, unbelievable what the aroma of wealth and hormones will do to an old lecher. Frailty, thy name is Man. But as used to I have become to the absurd twists and turns of this sub-pulp fictional saga, I must say I was shocked to see how fast Lady Ghoulaine went from the spartan privations of Lady Sing-Sing to penal-world Woodstock. From gruel to gruyere without passing Go – call it magical realism or just more run of the mill irreality. Jaw-droppingly absurd yet perfectly plausible. What’s next, she’ll be appointed Ambassador to Israel following her pardon? You heard it here first. They’re plumb scared of old Lady Cruella! To be serious just for a second, does DJT’s diminishing MAGA support – if it bears out – mean that karma has finally got ahold of the President’s tattered coat and he won’t quite manage to wriggle free? Don’t be certain -- Donald John Trump is more Harry Houdini than Harry Truman, that’s for sure – and he might well escape the rusty leg-irons of the law yet again. Alley cats have nine lives, and Felix the Trump has survived twice as many last rites than that and lived to tell the tale. Post-nuclear bio-scape? Fifty-trillion cockroaches and the inexterminable Tyrant of Trump Tower. Sequel rights, anyone? David Weiss started out as a jazz critic for the late great Los Angeles Herald Examiner , then used their stationery to pen a phony endorsement letter to prospective record companies regarding his new band Was (Not Was). Eight years later, there were two Top Ten singles and a life lived with maniacal Boy Scouts in bunk-bed buses rattling across America, the United Kingdom and points beyond. Wrote songs along the way with Bob Dylan, Iggy Pop and Elvis Costello. Have since filed all manner of nonsense with outfits like the New York Times , Wall Street Journal, Newsweek  and Forbes,  covering no less than la dolce vita itself (golf, food and lodging) without fear or favor.

By Larry Bogrow / Chicago Harold Bogrow (the author’s father) with Fay Bogrow (the author’s grandmother), circa 1943 What would you do if one day, out of the blue, you received an online message from a total stranger saying, “I have some information you might be interested in.” The person left their email address, name and phone number. In these uncertain days of scams, most people would likely ignore or delete such messages, but my brother Earl didn’t. Curiosity got the better of him. As a practicing dentist based in suburban Detroit, Earl received this mysterious message on his dental website. And at the same time, my sister Karen received a similar message on her Facebook feed. The common link was our surname, Bogrow. Earl decided to call the mystery person, thinking “what do I have to lose?” A woman named Gina Soleau answered the phone. She explained to Earl that she had recently purchased a home on Gladstone Street in Detroit and found some items in her attic that had our last name. She invited Earl to her home if he was interested, yet she never described the items to him. That’s when Earl first mentioned this to me for some brotherly advice. I knew that my dad and grandparents used to live on Gladstone, but that was before my parents got married in the late 1940s. I also knew that Gladstone was an inner-city location in a neighborhood much like Chicago’s south and west sides. Was it a trick? Was it safe or risky? Earl made the decision to visit the old Gladstone house and brought along his daughter’s 6‘5” boyfriend Alex Gross as support. Gina led them up to the third-floor attic on a hot summer day amid dust and spider webs. That’s when they found bags of letters, written to and from my father, Harold Bogrow, between 1941 and 1945. My grandparents had saved the letters, storing them in their attic. There weren’t just a few letters; there were well over a hundred, written to family members by my dad as well as many letters on military stationary from friends of his. During these years, my dad was only 19 years old, soon to enter the army himself through the end of World War II in 1945 when he would turn 23. Imagine reading these letters that were aging for more than 80 years in that dusty attic on Gladstone. Written during the war from the perspective of a young man barely twenty years old, this was truly a treasure trove. I won’t trouble you with the content of the letters, except to say they were well-written in legible cursive. Interesting how the tone changed on letters to the family versus letters to and from his friends in the military. I observed the term "swell" used on multiple occasions. Apparently "awesome" wasn’t part of the vernacular in the early 1940s. There were many “pal” references and he was called “Bugs” by many of his friends.” There’s a portion from one specific letter my dad mailed to his parents on Army Air Forces stationary on D-Day, dated June 6, 1944. that I’d like to share: “I guess you heard about the invasion this morning. Everybody has been waiting for this day and now it is here. It won’t be very long now before Germany is out and the war with Japan won’t last much longer. I still hear from all the fellows and they are doing all right." [Full letter at right] D-day letter from the author's father to the author's grandparents June 6, 1944 My dad never told me much about his time in the Army based in Alexandria, La., or war stories abroad, so these letters were not only a look at history, but allowed me the opportunity to learn much more about him. What an incredible opportunity it has been to get to know my dad in his early 20s, his close-knit family and friends. Harold Bogrow passed away over 30 years ago at the age of 72, survived by my mother Ann and the three of us kids. While he is missed, his legacy is enhanced by way of more than a hundred letters to and from him written 80 years ago. What a blessing! The moral of this story? Don’t always delete strange messages. If my brother Earl had ignored that message, this reunion with our dad would have never happened. And let’s thank Gina, who made all of this possible in the first place. Hidden treasures, indeed! Former Detroiter Larry Bogrow is a retired marketing and advertising executive. He and his wife Sue, who is orginally from Windsor, Ontario, have been married for 51 years and reside in Chicago‘s northwest suburbs (Mundelein, to be exact) in a Del Webb active adult community. Larry has been an avid pickleball enthusiast for over 15 years and does much volunteering in his community, including writing articles in its quarterly newsletters. He’s also a self-proclaimed Seinfeld trivia buff.

By Ben Leeds / Poughkeepsie, N.Y. Mets and Yankees fans bantering on baseball on the NYC subway After the Mets' thrilling playoff run last season fell one round short of a World Series matchup with the Yankees, New York baseball fans entered the 2025 season with high, yet not far-fetched, expectations that the two teams might meet in the Fall Classic.   Who could blame them? The Yankees had just reached their first World Series since 2009, and the Mets had produced an unforgettable October, thanks to iconic moments that seemed to occur with every victory.   In the offseason, the Mets signed superstar Juan Soto, stealing him from the Yankees, which solidified the Mets as a serious World Series contender. The Yankees bounced back and acquired a few big names themselves, including Cody Bellinger, Max Fried, Paul Goldschmidt and Devin Williams.   Both the Yankees and Mets started strong, as fans expected. By mid-June, each held sole possession of first place in their respective divisions. The Yankees led the American League East by 4.5 games, and the Mets had a 5.5 game lead in the National League East.   However, both New York squads went into mid-summer skids. Today, they’re both in second place in each of their divisions, still comfortably in the playoff picture occupying Wild Card spots. But if you asked the average New York fan their thoughts on either team, they’d likely tell you that the sky is falling.    That is the nature of New York sports fans: extreme emotional highs and lows. When things are going well, the athletes are treated like heroes. But when the team starts losing, even amidst a winning season, fans will boo them. Is their frustration warranted, given the team's great expectations?   In short, no. While the fans’ worries for this season are understandable, both the Yankees and Mets are one hot week of baseball from immediately flipping fans' bleak thoughts. That hot streak doesn’t even have to come instantly, just at the right time.   Given the unpredictable nature of the Major League Baseball playoffs, countless unlikely teams emerge in October. Just last year, the Mets clinched their spot in the playoffs on the last day of the regular season. They won just 89 games, but they made it all the way to the National League Championship Series before losing to the eventual World Series Champion Los Angeles Dodgers.   The 2024 World Series was an anomaly. The Yankees and Dodgers, both top seeds in their respective leagues, met in the Fall Classic, marking the first time both No. 1 seeds each made the World Series in a full season since 2013. That was the only other time it has happened in this century.   Even after the playoffs expanded in 2022 to include 12 teams, World Series representatives for the next two years all came from Wild Card seeds, the slot that both the Yankees and the Mets currently occupy.   The Philadelphia Phillies won 87 games in 2022 but went on to win the National League title. A year later, both the Texas Rangers and Arizona Diamondbacks reached the World Series after making the playoffs as Wild Card teams.   The most famous recent example of an unlikely champion was the Washington Nationals’ miracle 2019 run. Washington went 19-31 in their first 50 games, facing unlikely odds of even making the playoffs. They turned their season around and made the postseason, knocking out the 106-win Dodgers, then toppling the 107-win Houston Astros in the World Series.   It only takes one special moment to kick-start a team in October. Washington’s 2019 postseason is proof of it. The Nationals needed a go-ahead three-run double from Soto, then playing for Washington, just to get out of the Wild Card Game. Last year, the Mets themselves were down to their last two outs before Pete Alonso’s season-saving home run gave them a second life,  launching their own dramatic streak.   It is all about peaking at the right time. Sure, it would instill more confidence in fans if the Yankees and Mets could generate a few more winning streaks. It might get them a little better seeding and an extra home game or two, but it doesn’t change the fact that their 162-game slate will be wiped clean once the postseason begins.   Then, the Mets and Yankees are at an advantage just from their experience alone. Players like Francisco Lindor and Soto are proven playoff performers, as well as Giancarlo Stanton and Cody Bellinger on the Yankees’ side of town.   Most years, winning the World Series is a shot in the dark; the teams with the best record in the regular season often fail to put it all together when it matters most. That opens the door for teams like the Mets and Yankees, who can lean on past deep playoff runs in hopes of being the last team standing.     Ben is from Trumbull, CT, and is a senior at Marist University in Poughkeepsie, studying communication with a concentration in public relations and sports communication. There, he is the editor-in-chief of  Center Field , Marist’s student-run online sports reporting publication, and is in his third year as the women’s volleyball beat writer. Additionally, Ben also works as a managing editor of the campus newspaper, the  Marist Circle . Previously, Ben interned at the Highlands Current , reporting on news in the Beacon, NY area and with Forever Blueshirts , a website covering the New York Rangers.

By Laurence Lerman / New York City Denzel Washington feels the heat in Highest 2 Lowest There’s a moment early in Spike Lee’s Highest 2 Lowest when the camera cranes over Manhattan at dawn, sunlight glinting off the skyscrapers as the city awakes. It’s more than an establishing shot; it reminds us that Lee and his leading man, Denzel Washington, are products of this place. New York has long been the ground where Lee has staged his most vivid storytelling (not to mention his fiercest arguments) and where Washington, under Lee’s direction, delivered one of his defining screen performances in 1992’s Malcolm X . Their latest reunion for a modern reimagining of Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa’s 1963 High and Low feels energized by that shared history, as if the two artists were circling back to the land that created and nurtured them. In adapting Kurosawa’s procedural drama (taken from Ed McBain’s 1959 novel King’s Ransom ), Lee steers the story into the storied contradictions of 21st century New York. Kurosawa’s original was a moral fable about wealth colliding with the kidnapping of a child. Lee keeps the framework but threads it through the subjects he has long examined: race, class, family, and the thin membrane separating privilege from despair. Toshiro Mifune stars in Akira Kurosawa’s High and Low (1963) Washington plays Brooklyn-based music mogul David King, whose empire wobbles when a child is abducted—not he and his wife’s teenaged son, but rather that of his longtime friend and driver Paul (the always-fine Jeffrey Wright). So, what to do…? Everyone seems to have a different opinion on the options with the ensuing moral dilemma, including Ilfenesh Hadera as David’s magnetic wife, who supplies the story’s conscience; and Dean Winters, John Douglas Thompson and LaChanze as the case’s three investigative detectives.  In supporting turns, A$AP Rocky and Ice Spice add support as they embody a younger, more incendiary New York, which Lee uses as an additional spark in the combustibility of the situation. Sixty years ago, the masterful Kurosawa split High and Low cleanly in two: it began as a tense chamber drama followed by a procedural descent into the city’s seamy underworld. Lee honors that architecture but reconfigures it. In the early goings on, boardroom debates grow into arguments about legacy and gentrification within the Black community. The inevitable descent into ugliness and danger physicalizes into a traverse across today’s economic chasm—from penthouses hung with art (much of it reproductions of Lee’s own collection) to subway tunnels that reek of neglect. Denzel takes the action uptown What elevates Lee’s film beyond an homage is its immediacy. Kurosawa captured postwar Japan’s economic tensions; Lee confronts America in the age of widening inequality. In a strong sequence, Washington surveys Manhattan from his glass-walled office while, intercut, we see the kidnapper’s cramped tenement. The juxtaposition is blunt, but Lee has always wielded bluntness like a weapon. Lee also layers in signature flourishes: kinetic dolly shots, needle drops that range from anachronistic to inspired, flashes of surrealism. Kurosawa’s world was austere; Lee’s is exuberant, even unruly. Yet the central question endures: how much is a human life worth, and what will you sacrifice to save it? At 70, Washington has eased up on the intensity that defined his younger years, but his gravitas is unmatched. As a man torn between self-preservation and moral obligation, he gives a performance that almost feels like a career summation. The 68-year-old Lee knows it, too, framing Washington with reverence—often from low angles, his face etched in light and shadow—as if these images are meant to endure. Spike and Denzel at the movie’s world premiere at this year’s Cannes Film Festival What resonates most is the reunion of Washington and Lee, who have collaborated five times previously with the New York-based films Mo’ Better Blues (1990), Malcolm X (1992), He Got Game (1998), Bamboozled (2000), and Inside Man (2006). That quarter of a century of work found Lee expanding on his careerlong exploration of race relations and issues within the Black community, while each film revealed a different aspect of Washington’s talent—from romantic lead to historic titan to conflicted father and satirical foil. Together, the two New York-born artists have built one of modern cinema’s richest actor-director associations. Ultimately, what Lee and Washington have crafted is more than a remake (and at 140 minutes, a lengthy one). It’s a meditation on art, legacy, and time—not only for the characters but for two artists whose careers are inseparable from New York’s movie history. Their collaborations have always carried the rhythm and ambition of the city that shaped them. Highest 2 Lowest distills that bond, and if it proves to be their final project together, it stands as a farewell worthy of their partnership—and of the place where they’ve done their most memorable work. Highest 2 Lowest premiered in theaters on August 15 and will make its streaming debut on Apple TV+ on September 5. Laurence Lerman is a film journalist, a former editor of Video Business--Variety's digital media trade publication—and husband to The Insider's own Gwen Cooper. Over the course of his four-decade career, he has conducted one-on-one interviews with just about every major filmmaker working today, from Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino and Clint Eastwood to Kathryn Bigelow, Bernardo Bertolucci, and Werner Herzog. Most recently, he is the co-founder and editor-in-chief of the online review site  DiscDish.com , the founder and curator of  FilmShul.com , a multi-part presentation on the history of Hollywood and Jewish America, and a commentator on various 4K UHD and Blu-ray home entertainment releases.

By Jessie Seigel / Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C. has been taken over by a criminal element. A gangster and his associates, working out of the White House and other government buildings, are engaged in ongoing theft, extortion, bribery, assault, kidnapping, and false imprisonment on a national scale. They have managed to install corrupt officials at the U.S. Department of Justice to back their play and go after anyone who opposes them. And now, the Gangster-in-Chief has seized control of the D.C. Metropolitan Police Dept. and deployed 800 National Guard troops to the capital. Because Washington, D.C. is not a state, we who live here have no legal avenue to stop him for at least 30 days, perhaps longer. After 99 years of direct rule by Congress, the Home Rule Act permitted D.C. citizens to govern themselves, to elect a mayor, a district council, and advisory neighborhood commissioners. But Congress kept its power to control the District’s budget and key parts of its justice system and overturn any local law it doesn’t like. Furthermore, in extraordinary times of emergency, the Act permits a president to take over D.C. law enforcement for up to 30 days, extendable by Congress. Congress has often threatened to take away the little self-governance we have. And by his takeover of law enforcement, the Don is trying to beat Congress to that punch. We who live in the District of Columbia have no senator or voting congressperson to represent our interests. Since we are not a state, we have no governor like California’s Gavin Newsom, Illinois’ J. B. Pritzker or New York’s Kathy Hochul to stand up for us. So, when these right-wing thugs find themselves not yet able to fully impose their will on states nationwide, they impose it on Washington, D.C., making an example of us for others to follow or fear. Thus, the head mobster, Donald J. Trump, has claimed that a crime wave warranting emergency action supports his takeover of law enforcement in D.C. This is simply a brazen pretext for expanding his illegitimate power. Violent crime in D.C. is at a 30-year low. It has no more crime than any other big city or rural area. In fact, even in the early years of my time here in D.C., I remember suburbanites asking whether I felt safe in the city. I responded by asking whether they felt safe in the suburbs because I was constantly hearing of kidnappings at isolated bus stops or dead bodies being found in car trunks at suburban shopping malls.    The chief criminal's White House further gave his game away when it issued a statement on August 12 that homeless people here have only two choices: go to a homeless shelter or go to jail. Never mind that there aren’t sufficient homeless shelters for them. Or that they’re homeless, not criminals. Or that this stance has nothing to do with stopping violent crime, but with a contempt for the vulnerable, and the sadistic pleasure the Boss and his cohorts take in abusing them. Existence can be made against the law. And under this regime, it probably will be. The 34-count felon holed up in the White House has loudly brayed: “This is Liberation Day in D.C. and we’re going to take our Capital back.” I’ve lived in D.C. for 47 years. This is my town—not his.  It’s also the town of the homeless people living on the street in my neighborhood who’ve never bothered anybody. It’s not the town of that racketeer, with his gold toilets and insurrectionist followers. What we need is liberation from the likes of him. Instead, we’ve got a mayor who’s not sufficiently fighting for us. And we’ve got D.C.’s Chief of Police stating that our police will assist ICE in its masked raids and kidnappings by supplying information about people not in custody. It is only the citizens themselves who are fighting back. In August, one local citizen called the federal intruders fascists and threw a Subway sandwich at them. The representatives of the true Deep State Swamp—Attorney General Pam Bondi and Acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jean Pirro—had him charged with felony assault, with a possible eight-year sentence. For throwing a sandwich . As could have been predicted, they could not find a D.C. jury to indict him. While the nation's head hoodlum lies about the dangers of D.C., he simultaneously encourages tourists to come here. My advice to tourists: Don’t come to the Capital until the National Guard stands down and the D.C. police are no longer controlled by the criminals in power. Go to other historic cities instead. Try Philadelphia. Or Boston. To the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department and the National Guard, I say: you have two choices. You can follow orders like German Nazis followed their murderous leader.  But “I was just following orders” did not work out well for them when his vicious dictatorship ended. On the other hand, you can decide that it’s time for a little quiet mutiny in defense of democracy. Stand with the people. Fail en masse to follow illegitimate orders. When you’re told to detain individuals who have done nothing wrong—be they immigrants or homeless residents—fail to find them.  It’s time to decide: which side are you on? Jessie Seigel’s journalistic career began with the political Washington Whispers column, written for The Insider . Since The Insider ended its run in 2023, Seigel has continued the column as My Washington Whispers, www.mywashingtonwhispers.com . In addition, Seigel has had a long career as a government attorney, has received two Artist’s Fellowships from the Washington, D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities for her fiction, has been a finalist for several literary awards, and has had two professional staged readings of her play Tinker's Damn , with another play, The Three Jessies , forthcoming in September. More on Seigel can be found at  https://www.jessieseigel.com .

By Dr. Nancy Fishman / Morgan Hill, Calif. As a private practice psychologist, I have heard my share of marital problems. It is still thrilling to see couples overcome routine rough patches and seemingly insurmountable barriers. In 1990, the work led me onto a path I never anticipated. A family court judge in Oakland County, Mich., invited me and a family law attorney to write a program for divorcing parents to help them and their children through a difficult time in their family’s history. The SMILE program made its way around the country just as a new culture around divorce began to emerge. Could divorce be handled in a gentler way than the traditional litigated nightmare commonly practiced? In the same year we launched SMILE, Stuart Webb, a Minnesota attorney, teamed up with other attorneys and therapists to chart a new course for divorcing couples to end marriages and save the families. He called it Collaborative Law, and it, too, made its way across the country. When Collaborative Law was introduced in my county, I immediately enrolled in training to join a collaborative team, which commonly consists of two attorneys, two therapists, and a financial neutral. The collaborative divorce process is conducted in the round with transparency and trust resulting in an out-of-court settlement. I had learned that even the most difficult cases could be settled by the collaborative method. This theory would certainly be tested in one of my early cases, Doctor v. Doctor. I was relatively new at the collaborative divorce process when I was brought onto a case involving a married couple seeking a less contentious divorce. Each party had his or her own divorce attorney as well as his or her own therapist. I was selected as the wife’s therapist, and Nathan Comerford was selected as the husband’s therapist. This was the first of many cases Nathan and I would manage as therapist partners assisting the attorneys on the road to a settlement as gently as possible. The divorcing parties were two college professors working at the same small college in a very small town. They had met in graduate school and had helped each other through exams and dissertations. After graduating and receiving offers to teach at a prestigious liberal arts college, they decided to get married. They were close to 30 years old and wanted to start a family right away. They bought a house in a tight-knit community and spent the next six years filling the home with four children. At the onset of the case, the children ranged in age from 5 to 11. Doctor Husband reported he had been unhappy in the marriage for a few years. He couldn’t remember the last time he and his wife enjoyed any time together without the children. In addition to the responsibilities of raising a young family, both parties were pressured by the college to obtain research grants and publish. The distance between the couple continued to grow. Finally, Doctor Husband could no longer tolerate his discontent and made an appointment with a collaborative divorce attorney, hoping things would go more smoothly with less conflict. The attorney sent the couple to me for an initial meeting. Unbeknownst to me, Doctor Husband had not told his wife he wanted a divorce, or that he had already seen an attorney. He told her they were going to see a marriage counselor the night of their first appointment with me. Just as the elevator stopped at my floor and the doors opened, Doctor Husband told Doctor Wife he wanted a divorce, and they were actually here to talk about that. Doctor Wife and I were both surprised! After recovering from the shock, I explained the collaborative process and referred Doctor Husband to Nathan; I stayed on Doctor Wife’s team. Following that first meeting, I had three individual meetings with Doctor Wife. The first was really rough because Doctor Wife was still in disbelief. She claimed she had had no idea her husband was unhappy. She was frustrated that her husband was denying her the opportunity to improve their marriage. She said she was hurt beyond any pain she had ever experienced. During the second meeting, Doctor Wife shared a suspicion that her husband was having an affair. She even thought she knew the woman, another professor at the college. Even if she were correct, she was willing to try marriage counseling if her husband would give it a chance. Finally, in the third meeting, Doctor Wife realized the marriage was over. She had been having many conversations with her husband, and he was very certain he wanted a divorce. She believed she had to accept the inevitable and start planning for the future. When Doctor Wife came to this conclusion, I felt it was time for a four-way meeting with the parties, Nathan and me. The meeting was riveting, to say the least. On one hand, it did not erupt into a galactic dog-and-cat-fight. However, it became clear that Doctor Wife was full of resentment and disgust that her husband had been hiding his unhappiness and his desire to get a divorce. At that point, she accused him of seeing another woman. Doctor Husband just sat there as his emotionally tormented wife pummeled him. He seemed full of guilt but did not react to accusations of seeing another woman. And in the midst of all their pain and frustration, they were remarkably aligned in their desire to shelter their children from the potential devastation divorce can cause. My next meeting with Doctor Wife alone was the perfect example of how grief takes hold. One minute she was in denial about the divorce, and the next she was mad as a wet hen. Then she would fantasize about ways to get her husband back until she was exhausted and sad. In the end, she pulled herself out of discouragement and inched toward resignation. She was strong, courageous, and elegant. I wanted to forget my role and boundaries as her therapist, cross the room and just hug her like I would a sister. Meanwhile, Doctor Husband was continuing to meet with Nathan. At last, he admitted to Nathan he was, indeed, having an affair with another professor at the college. Now, it was up to Doctor Husband to come clean in the next four-way meeting. Nathan and I hoped Doctor Husband would reveal the affair to his wife to provide the transparency the process was lacking thus far. We also believed Doctor Wife would be able to begin the healing process when she learned her suspicions were true. Doctor Husband spent the first half of the next four-way meeting sidestepping the affair and any topics related to it. Then, finally, Doctor Husband stated there was something weighing heavily on his mind and heart that he wanted to get out in the open. The spotlight was on him. We held our collective breath as the words left his mouth. He was having an affair. All eyes turned toward Doctor Wife. Her reaction was not at all what we expected. Instead of displaying shock, horror and pain, tears just ran down her face. It turns out she had a confession to make as well. She had known about Doctor Girlfriend for some time but was deliberately withholding the information waiting to see if her husband was man enough to confess. We gave our clients the rest of the meeting to process the revelation. Just as they stood up to leave, I was reminded of the first time I saw them coming off the elevator, when Doctor Husband told his wife they were not here for marriage counseling. Now, as they were putting on their coats, Doctor Husband blurted out one more thing: Doctor Girlfriend was pregnant with his fifth child! I thought this bombshell would sully the negotiations for marital assets and parenting time, but something unexpected transcended all the lies--something so strong and enduring that would help both Doctor Husband and Doctor Wife end their marriage and save their family. The love for their children emerged as the bond that would carry them through the darkest days. I have come to know over the many years of working in this arena that where there is love, there is always hope. The day the divorce was finalized in court, Doctor Girlfriend went into labor. Doctor Ex-Husband collected his divorce papers from one window at the county offices and picked up a marriage license from the next window. Doctor Ex-Wife was able to heal only after Doctor Ex-Husband delivered a most heartfelt apology with a promise to honor the needs of their family. The three adults and five children have shared quality family time on many occasions for the sake of the all the children. This story originated from Sex, Lies & Negotiations by Nancy Fishman, PhD and Nathan Comerford, M.A.; Momentum Books, 2011 This column is devoted to psychological topics that speak to the human condition, such as relationships, family, love, loss, and happiness. The ideas, thoughts, philosophies, and observations expressed here are personal and not meant as professional advice. Names and identifying information have been changed to protect the privacy of real people. Dr. Nancy Fishman moved to Santa Clara County in 2016 from Michigan, where she was a practicing psychologist. Currently, she is a strategy consultant to individuals, families, businesses, family law attorneys and their clients--working on coping, managing, reorganizing, pivoting and innovating. She is the founder of Forgotten Harvest, one of the nation’s largest food recovery operation, and is also the creator of Silicon Valley’s A La Carte food recovery and distribution initiative. Nancy lives on a family compound with her husband, sisters, brother-in-law, and a pack of dogs. NancyFishmanPhD.com ForgottenHarvest.org

By Andy Borowitz  Aug 11, 2025 DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA ( The Borowitz Report )—The mayor of Washington DC suggested on Monday that the best way for Donald J. Trump to empty the streets of the nation’s capital would be to throw himself another birthday parade. “You want to see people clear out?” Muriel Bowser said to reporters. “Get a bunch of those squeaky old tanks rolling down the streets and you won’t see anyone for miles.” “Not to take anything away from the National Guard,” she aded. “But in terms of getting people to vanish, nothing in history has come close to President Trump’s parade.” At the White House, press secretary Karoline Leavitt blasted the mayor’s plan, arguing, “Far from making people leave the city, a birthday parade would only make them fall asleep, like Melania.”

Hello again to our friends in the Insider community,   We have been overwhelmed by your glowing response to our commemorative issue. We missed you, too! We hope you’ll like this third installment just as much.   When we started The Insider in 2020 during the pandemic, our slogan was “Hands on the Heart, Six Feet Apart.” Those were the frightening days when we were washing our groceries and avoiding our neighbors.  By 2021, we slowly regained our footing and felt a smidgen of hope that the pandemic would end eventually.  In May 2023, the World Health Organization declared the end of the global Covid health emergency—marking the pandemic’s “end.” Good riddance to bad rubbish!   By that point, however, we were beginning to have our own journalistic identity crisis. As a self-declared pandemic publication, what would we cover if there were no pandemic? Nonetheless, we soldiered on and adopted our current slogan from our musical guru, Bob Dylan: “All the latest gossip, all the latest rhyme.” But in July 2023, we closed up shop, with a bittersweet feeling that we had fulfilled our mission,   Then a funny thing happened…or not such a funny thing. The political situation in the United States shifted dramatically, and there were more dire stories than any one media outlet could begin to report. Was it possible that the need for our type of news coverage still existed in a post-pandemic world?   After having spent a satisfying month back on the digital assembly line, we think the answer is yes. So we are thrilled to announce that we will officially resume publication on Thursday, September 4 th ! After that, we will be publishing biweekly, every other Thursday. We invite your suggestions, kvetches and submissions by email to editor@theinsider1. com.   See you after Labor Day!   Exuberantly Yours,   Andrea Sachs and the Team at The Insider

By Victoria Rolfe / Red Hook, NY The author and her husband John at a No Kings Day march on June 14 in Kingston, NY Hi everyone! It’s good to be back amongst The Insiders. I would like to thank Andrea for giving us this opportunity to reconnect for this Commemorative series. It’s certainly a different world than the one we were writing about a few years ago. Back then, we were dealing with a microscopic enemy. Now the foe we face, a looming dictatorship, is all too visible, and just as pervasive and threatening; in fact I would say even more so. But whatever we are confronted with on a global level, the only way we can persevere is on an individual basis. This is not to say that we each fight alone, far from it. It is when millions of individuals all step up to do the right thing that we become a force with which to be reckoned. Here at the Rolfe homestead, nothing much has changed. Perhaps that is the case for you in your own home life as well. If we didn’t watch the news (which I must admit is hard to do on most days), we would be blissfully unaware of the danger that is threatening our country. But we do watch the news (well, not the mainstream network news, which is too afraid to report what is really happening), and are all too aware of this new dark enemy invading America. As I say, life hasn’t changed for us here, because ;my husband John and I were already living the lifestyle that we feel is best for ourselves, our bodies, our health, our community, our country, and the planet. It is my belief that each person should be living in a manner that they feel if everyone lived that way, the world would be a better place. The author picking snow peas in her beloved home vegetable garden For us that means we live a simple, frugal, sustainable existence. The typical American lives paycheck to paycheck, but instant gratification existence is not for us. We grow as much of our own food as we can (we are still working to increase our production), we have our own chickens, and we eat a vegan diet. When we do need something, we try hard to buy it used or make do with what we have. We have scrimped and saved (and invested) all our lives and have a good cushion of savings to keep us going into our golden years. I tell you all this not to sound superior, but to say that we will be less affected by the price increases and inflation that are likely to come than those living more consumerist lifestyles. We could just live here happily in our little bubble and ignore what is happening in the world. But we wouldn’t and we don’t. Because living the life that we feel each person should be living requires activism right now. Each and every one of us needs to fight this. Every individual needs to be doing whatever they can to resist the evil that has taken hold of our country. What does that look like? It is staying informed. It is getting involved in your local politics. It is joining local groups such as Indivisible to work to spread the word. It is calling your representatives daily if you can to make your voice heard. It is voting in every election, from the hyper-local to the national. It is taking part in demonstrations, and boycotts, and (hopefully someday) a nationwide work stoppage. It is helping your neighbors who may be more affected by this. It is not becoming complacent and letting any of this become normalized. This is NOT normal! It is an outrage! We must stand up for ourselves, and more importantly for the marginalized who have become the victims of this horrible regime. So yes, each individual must do their own part, and with 340 million individuals in this country, We the People become a powerful force of one. Let’s do this! Together we can resist! We can overcome! A better world is in our future. As Egyptian author and activist Wael Ghomin wrote, “The power of the people is greater than the people in power.” A long, long time ago, after the birth of her third child, Victoria made the life-changing decision to leave the work world behind and devote herself to being a full-time mom and homemaker. Along with her new title of Domestic Engineer, she took on the role of the Chief Home Economist for the family. At first, it was scary to try to live on less than half their income, but Victoria found that she not only rose to the challenge but thrived in the enjoyment of learning to live their best life with limited resources. She embraced this new frugal lifestyle of the at-home-mom and went on to add a fourth child to the mix. And their family was complete. Along the way she acquired a great deal of wisdom in how to not only avoid debt, but pay off mortgages early, buy cars for cash, travel on a shoe-string budget, and send kids to college with no student loans, all while also saving a tidy nest egg for retirement. She currently educates others in these skills through her business Bright Future.   Now living the life of a modern homesteader in the Hudson Valley, New York, Victoria has added gardening to her list of skill sets as she grows many of her own vegetables to supplement her family’s primarily vegan diet. And she has come to realize that this waste-not, want-not, carbon-friendly, sustainable life she is living is not only benefiting her own family but also our Mother Earth, and that each of us has the obligation to live a responsibly sustainable life not only for ourselves, but for the greater good of our community, and our planet. We can all do this one household and backyard at a time. We are the world! And it all begins right at home. Victoria can be reached at brightfuture2budget4@gmail.com

By Lydia Hope Wilen / New York City Hello Insider readers. It’s been a while. Hopefully you’ve all survived the 2020 Toilet Paper Shortage and are thinking up ways to enjoy life and maybe to do what you always wanted to do. I always wanted to do stand-up. Making people laugh was thrilling. But, growing up, I was told it was a lot more practical for women to earn a living. Decades later, having earned a living, I can now afford to get those laughs by doing stand-up. It’s hard for me to believe that I’m in my so-called golden years. That being the case, I’m tired of all the old-folks jokes. Enough making fun of seniors walking into a room and forgetting why, or dropping something and before bending down to pick it up, thinking ‘Do I really need that?’ Then again, I can’t ignore the fact that the audience is going to see that I’m no spring chicken. (When was the last time you heard that expression?) Enough with the foreplay. Let’s go on with the show. Stand-up Act Starter I started noticing fine lines under my eyes. Nothing fine about them. And the deepening smile lines around my mouth were nothing to smile at. While wondering what to do about it, I was seduced into watching a seemingly-endless online infomercial, promising to repair and reduce the appearance of deep lines and wrinkles. Taking advantage of their six-jar offer, I ordered and received the advanced action, anti-aging, micro-sculpting, wrinkle repair cream. Of course, I followed their suggested use by putting a nickel-size dab of cream on my finger and, using an upward motion, gently massaged it on the right side of my face until it was completely absorbed. Then I repeated the process on the left side of my face. As advised, I did this in the morning and at bedtime. For 90 days I did: finger, dab, massage, absorbed; finger, dab, massage, absorbed. After three months, the lines on my face were as prominent as ever. However, my finger looked ten years younger. Did you just fall on the floor laughing? Oh no! You’ve fallen and you can’t get up? Any comedian will tell you how important it is to test out her material. And so, I enlisted my assistant Viv to listen to me do my wrinkle-remover bit. She laughed. I didn’t. Not because my punchline didn’t work, but because my voice changed. I didn’t realize the years-long gradual change in my voice, until I performed the finger bit for Viv. I’m starting to sound like Bill Clinton. That realization put an end to my stand-up career. So now what? I’ll write about people I know who are doing fun and funny things. For instance, there’s Arnie Levin, an on-in-years cartoonist for New Yorker magazine. He and a group of his elderly contemporaries, had a motorcycle gang. Hell’s Angels? Hell no! Arnie’s group called themselves, ‘Schlemiels on Wheels’. Funny, right? Oh no! I can’t think of anyone else doing a fun or funny thing. What now? Attention Span Studies suggest that the average attention span has dramatically decreased since we moved into the age of digital devices. We’re talking about an average of way under 30 seconds. Are you still with me? That being the case, I’ll do the rest of this essay with quickies – all kinds of “I didn’t know that” information and nothing longer than the average attention span. Irony The word for the fear of long words is (I dare you to pronounce it) hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia. Cutting-Edge Safety Tip Take the danger out of cutting a bagel in half by using a dull serrated knife, allowing you to have control as you saw through the dough. Remember Riddles? Here’s one that didn’t, wouldn’t, couldn’t come from my childhood: I have keys but no locks. I have space but no room. You can enter but you can’t go outside. What am I? (Scroll all the way down for the answer . . . if you need it.) No Laughing Matter You can’t tickle yourself because your brain predicts the sensation and cancels it out. Fact Followed By Fiction Mount Rushmore It took 14 years for sculptor Gutzon Borglum and his team to complete this South Dakota granite masterpiece featuring American presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln. Stamp of Approval On July 13th, the price of a Forever stamp went from 73 cents to 7 8 cents . At the post office, one hundred stamps cost $78. Go to foreverstampsshop.com and you will have your choice of 100 Forever stamps starting at $19.99 – a 74% saving. You’re welcome And Finally, Don't Forget. . . Be yourself. Everyone else is taken. Don’t look back and ask why. Look forward and ask why not. A way to be happy is to make others happy. If you learn from a mistake, it’s not one. Don’t always act your age. Have an attitude of gratitude. Try and fail, but don’t fail to try. Know that you’re unique Thank you for spanning your attention my way! Riddle Solution: A computer. It has a keyboard, a space bar and an enter key. Lydia Hope Wilen began her professional career as a comedy writer on  Personality , a celebrity-driven game show.  Her greatest gig was her extremely successful collaboration with her late sister Joany as nonfiction bestselling authors (18 books), which led to the sisters becoming  popular TV personalities. They continued as journalists (NY Daily News Sunday full-page feature, Celebrity Surveys for Cosmopolitan Magazine, cover stories for Parade Magazine) and got the opportunity to write and talent coordinate a  Nickelodeon  series hosted by Leonard Nimoy. The Wilens had an unusually versatile writing range from  Reading Rainbow  episodes, to off-color comedy skits for Dr. Ruth Westheimer’s TV show,  Sexually Speaking, plus  three optioned screenplays. And that's just for starters . . .