As a kid, one of the scariest movies I ever saw was Jurassic Park. I remember lying awake in bed at night, listening to the sound of a giant T. rex stomping down trees in my backyard. Sure, it was just the sound of the new dishwasher, but I didn’t know that until I confessed to my parents what I’d heard. Before Jurassic Park, all I knew [...]
After a five-year excavation effort by Smithsonian Institute scientists, treasures buried under 20 feet of water and sand are home. Belonging to King Kamehameha II (a.k.a. Liholiho), the second ruler of the Kingdom of Hawaii, the riches from the shipwrecked yacht had been scattered across the ocean floor by 191 years’ worth of stormy waters, hurricanes and erosion. The vessel, which sank off the coast [...]
For those who remain staunch devotees of print books, there are few things as disappointing as being at your favorite bookstore and unable to find the book you’re searching for. However, it is difficult for publishers and bookstores to forecast, print and stock books that they are unsure will sell—and doing so can lead to monetary losses and ultimately needing to destroy unsold [...]
When I was a kid, I had a lot of trouble going to sleep. And with two younger children, my mom didn’t have the time to read out loud to me until I drifted off. That’s why every night I listened to audio books. I drifted away to books like Holes and The Giver, and to authors like Ronald Dahl and Cornelia Funke. While I love [...]
I’ve got a question for those of you not involved in the art world: When was the last time you painted something? Maybe when you took that last mandatory art class about halfway through high school? Even though it’s been a while for many adults, those creative juices are still there just waiting to be tapped into—and now there is a booming industry [...]
My first cell phone was my mom’s old Nokia brick. I wasn’t able to do a whole lot more than make phone calls and play Snake—but then again, what else was a phone supposed to do? When I got my first iPhone, it changed my life. For the first time, I understood that one device could do many, many things. A phone was [...]
On June 8, 2015, a children’s book, The Adventures of Alice Laselles, was published; its original manuscript is credited to “Alexandrina Victoria, aged 10 and ¾.” The dedication in the book reads: To my dear Mamma. This, my first attempt at composition, is affectionately and dutifully inscribed by her affectionate daughter, Victoria. As impressive as this vocabulary is for such a young girl, it [...]
It should come as no surprise that a career in publishing is not particularly physically demanding. Looking around the PSG office, I feel I can safely say that many publishing jobs involve a lot of sitting and staring at a computer. And this is true of many others; compared to our parents and grandparents, we are spending increasing amounts of time in environments [...]
, an American musician who lived and worked during the twentieth century, has always been considered a daring composer. Partch refused to let himself be limited by conventions; when he found the conventional western tuning system and its instruments constraining, he simply created his own. Partch’s handmade instruments use just intonation rather than the typical 12-tone equal temperament that is practiced in western music. These [...]
When I was five and growing up in Oakland, my parents would drive my older brother and me out to Berkeley, California, for a weekend afternoon at Adventure Playground. It was our favorite place in the world: a half-acre of dirt and lopsided structures that looked built by children because they had been. I remember working together with a dozen other five-, six- and [...]