‘Snakes on a Plane’ Changed His Life. Then It All Fell Apart.
It was November 2021, deep COVID time, and I had unmasked to have a drink with Kiki Benzon at The Surly Goat, a bar in West Hollywood. I hadn’t seen her in 30 years. In the early 1990s, Kiki and I had been rivals on the über-geeky North American private-school debate circuit; she attended school in British Columbia, I was from Connecticut, and we’d met as seniors at a tournament in Boston, then another in Winnipeg. After we got our stories on the table — my writing, my wife and children, her teaching (film studies at USC), her early recent...
Alexander Dolitsky: In a troubled world, a touch of humor is welcome cure
There are studies linking laughter and humor to positive changes in people’s lives. Indeed, laughter and humor are strong medicine; they draw people together in ways that trigger healthy physical and emotional changes in people’s mental and physical conditions. Arkady Raikin (1911–1987) was a Soviet stand-up comedian and...
Eby: Scott Novak, my other better half
In my mind, my relationship with Scott Novak spanned 60 years. One of the Paul Bunyan-like tall tales he enjoyed spinning was his role in bringing A Hard Day’s Night to the Dowagiac theater in 1964. Richard Phillipson and I stood on our seats straining to see over a boiling sea of screaming girls. As […] The post Eby: Scott Novak, my other better half appeared first on Leader Publications.