Ann Lemons Pollack
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Ashland, OR Part 2
Once a breakfast-phobe, Ann has become a convert to the pleasures of the meal; one morning while Joe was in a meeting, she slipped away to a restaurant called Morning Glory, the only one of our Ashland, Ore., restaurants that isn't within easy walking distance of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. It's in an old Craftsman
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Sarah’s Key
Despite its motto of “Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite” motto, French attitude toward Jews in the 19th and much of the 20th century put them strictly in the back of the bus. The Dreyfus Affair, in the 1890s, was a low spot, but some of the World War II collaborations with the Nazis might have been even
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Ashland, OR 2011. Part 1
Why go to Ashland, Oregon? Well, probably for a small orgy of theater-going. The Oregon Shakespeare Festival, based in the small, lovely town, plays nine months a year. Three stages, including a large, outdoor Elizabethan-style one, often mean four different shows a day, not all Shakespeare, at the height of the season. But this, the
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Oregon Shakespeare Festival
ASHLAND, Ore. — The matinee was over and we were sitting in Lithia Park, just down the hill from the theaters that house the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. On the field in front of us, a few guys tossed a frisbee, another practiced his juggling, one kicked around a hackey-sack. We were talking about the "Julius
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Snow Flower and the Magic Fan
The sheer photographic beauty of "Snow Flower and the Secret Fan" is absolutely mind-boggling. Wayne Wang's superlative, dramatic tale of two women bound by "laotong," opens today and is a feast for the lover of visual artistry. Every shot is perfectly focused, perfectly lighted, and the beauty seems natural. Richard Wong is the cinematographer, Dierdre
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Herbie’s Vintage 72
Few restaurants in St. Louis engender such high hopes and vigorous differences of opinion as Herbie’s Vintage 72. For some folks, it’s all about the bar and the scene, and the food is secondary, if it’s mentioned at all. For others, it’s a path to a memorable past, and the present is measured against that.
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Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: 2
First, you put on your cute, round, black-rimmed glasses, just like the ones Harry Potter wears. Then you enter the theater to see "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: 2," which opens today. And then you experience excruciating boredom for more than two hours as the young wizard is blurred by a 3-D process that
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Le Quattro Volte
Italian filmmaker Michelangelo Frammartino has created a small miracle in "Le Quattro Volte," which translates to "the four times," which translates again to "the four seasons." It's a film without a word of dialogue, so its Italian heritage will pose no language problems. It's a film that spends a year with a goatherd from Calabria,
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A Better Life
Despite all the palaver out there about living in the land of opportunity, it's hard to imagine living with the panic that is the constant companion to Carlos Galindo. He's a Los Angeles day worker. Even worse, he's an illegal immigrant with a teenage son, Luis, who was born in Los Angeles. If Carlos is
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Cousin Hugo’s Bar & Grill
Suddenly, dive bars have become the in thing. Now understand that “dive bar” is like “martini;” the words (or word) mean something different from what it used to. We remember dive bars as being dark, with sticky floors, stale air and bad reputations, the sort of place you wouldn’t want your mother to know you