By Dr. Jeffrey Lant Author’s program note. It is October time around America and that means the ubiquitous appearance of pumpkins. They are everywhere these days… small ones up Massachusetts Avenue at the Montrose Spa where Tommy, el jefe, has at last shaved what was striving to become a beard; we are all relieved, since …
By Dr. Jeffrey Lant Author’s program note. Today is a red-letter day for me… one of the most important days of my life. For such a day nothing short of one of our weary world’s greatest masterpieces, Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy.” (1824), will do . Please play it before you read this article. You cannot …
By Dr. Jeffrey Lant Author’s program note. Every year, it seems, the opening date for Christmas marketing creeps forward, adding days, not just hours, to the already lengthy selling season. This year my cadre of Christmas watchers reported seasonal catalog and store sightings as early as Labor Day, September 8 . But you can count …
By Dr. Jeffrey Lant Author’s program note. I live and work in Cambridge, Massachusetts, just steps away from Harvard Sq. This compact area along the MBTA’s Red Line arguably contains the greatest concentration of brain power and technological innovation on earth. I’m here to tell you about a great new idea hereabouts which you’ll want …
By Dr. Jeffrey Lant It is still dark outside my brilliantly lit Cambridge, Massachusetts office at 5:31 a.m. Eastern time, September 14, 2011. I am happy not only because I have just a few minutes ago completed my article of the day… but because this is the 350th article in my current series. Today’s article …
By Dr. Jeffrey Lant Author’s program note. The autumn auction catalogs have begun to pour in, a stunning library of things rare, notable, luxurious, just the kinds of things you know are necessary for the “look” that screams your name. You are — or want to be — a collector on an international scale… but …
By Dr. Jeffrey Lant Author’s program note: There could only be one song to accompany this article, the theme from the 1970 film “Love Story,” written by Harvard classicist Erich Segal. You see, this article is about a love story, too, a love for a special place… and for a lifetime of memories launched from …
By Dr. Jeffrey Lant Author’s program note. This article will touch you more deeply than you might otherwise allow if you find one of the innumerable renditions of George Gershwyn’s “Someone To Watch Over Me”. (1926, from the often-revived musical “Oh, Kay!”) The one by the late chanteuse Amy Winehouse (given the tragic and squalid …
by Dr. Jeffrey Lant Author’s note: Michael Ignatieff and I were classmates at Harvard University. We were in the same “track” together, Modern European History. Each week for a year (1969-1970) we gathered for the colloquium which enabled H. Stuart Hughes, chairman of the History Department, to scrutinize us and decide who would advance to …
by Dr. Jeffrey Lant I am, amongst other things, a professional speaker of many years experience. Such people are trained to read audiences; see what works… and run with it… while eschewing and abandoning any line that doesn’t arouse the audience and fails to seize their hearts and minds. The other day I was delivering …