Arts & Style

Beating the February blahs

Submitted by Barbara Ruben on Tuesday, January 31, 2012

While much of this winter has been downright balmy, February can still be a month where leafless trees, early sunsets and frigid early mornings can wear you down. And with leap year, we have to slog through 29 days.

Blowing in the wind

Submitted by Barbara Ruben on Friday, October 19, 2012

In the 1930s, dust clouds roiled a mile high and more than 100 miles wide across the Great Plains, visible on the horizon hours before the black blizzards descended on towns and decimated farms. “It looked like the end of the world,” said Cal Crabill of the wall of dust that would plow into his Colorado farm near the Kansas border. “It looked like a mountain range moving toward us.”

Creating a show about aging parents

Submitted by Barbara Ruben on Sunday, October 28, 2012

Soon after my last blog post about the dearth of older characters on TV and realistic story lines for them, I interviewed Amy Lippman, creator o the YouTube show, “Ruth and Erica.” The show, which is presented in seven-minute snippets, follows  40-something Erica, played by Maura Tierney (currently also in the CBS hit “The Good Wife”), who is grappling with caring for her increasingly frail mother and father, who is in the early stages of Alzhe

Eat, drink and be merry

Submitted by Barbara Ruben on Monday, December 13, 2010

Yesterday afternoon, I pulled the tattered recipe for gingersnaps out of recipe box that had once belonged to my mother. Gingersnaps are a holiday treat we made each year growing up, and baking them every December continues as a tradition with my own daughter.

Holiday shows help make the season merry and bright

Submitted by Barbara Ruben on Monday, November 21, 2011

Beyond the Christmas creep and the showdown for parking spaces at the mall, the holiday season brings a bounty of plays and concerts that more than make up for commercialization of the season. Here are a few to consider attending, many with the youngsters in your life. All will make you feel young at heart and are sure to banish Scrooge’s voice in back of your head.

Is it so terribly strange to be 70?

Submitted by Barbara Ruben on Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Bob Dylan turned 70 yesterday. Fresh from playing concerts in China and Taiwan, he’ll jet on to Ireland, England, Israel, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Denmark and Norway — and that’s just in June alone.

Must-see TV?

Submitted by Barbara Ruben on Friday, September 28, 2012

Just how many characters on your favorite shows are over 50? Very few, it turns out. However, a new online-only drama series, "Ruth and Erica" explores the dynamic between adult children and their increasingly frail parents.

Red but not read

Submitted by Barbara Ruben on Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Last year, the producers of the movie Red, currently in theaters, wrote to us asking permission to include a copy of the Beacon in a scene from the movie. I was thrilled. The Beacon was going Hollywood.

Rubbing shoulders with celebrity

Submitted by Barbara Ruben on Thursday, March 7, 2013

Last week, I had the pleasure of interviewing Michael Feinstein, who sings classics from the Great American Songbook by such composers and lyricists as Duke Ellington, Jerome Kern and Cole Porter in concert and shares information about these musical legends on his shows on PBS and NPR. Feinstein grew up in Ohio in the 1960s and ‘70s, the same as me, and shared how he came to be listening to the greats of another era while I tuned my tangerine-colored Panasonic radio to a station that played a perpetual loop of the Rolling Stones, Eagles and Jackson Five.

Some operating instructions for grandparents

Submitted by Barbara Ruben on Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Back in 1993, one of my favorite writers, Anne Lamott, published a witty, self-deprecating journal about her son’s first year. Called Operating Instructions, it chronicled her joyful, exhausting days as a single parent with her baby Sam.