We magicians are a hugely varied lot. We come in all shapes, sizes, ages, ethnicities, proclivities and anything else you can think of. In fact, we seem to have only two things in common. One, of course, is we’re all skilled and shameless liars. The other is we do not, to a man or woman, ...

One of the only college subjects I had an aptitude for was philosophy. Then again, I had a wonderful teacher, Reverend George Easter. Aside from being brilliant, he loved the subject, loved teaching and communicated both to his students. That said, my two semesters with him were hardly ...

If anytime during a specific 53 years at Paul Smith’s College you’d mentioned the name Eileen to anyone there, they would have immediately known who you meant. And when I say anyone, I mean anyone — teacher, student, administrator or staff — the whole shmeer. Eileen was Eileen ...

Five years ago my life underwent a drastic change that divided it into two distinct periods — BC and AD. BC stands for Before Cooking. AD stands for Aristocratic Dining. The BC label is objective — I really didn’t cook five-plus years ago. On the other hand, the AD label is, to put ...

When I’m in the doctor’s waiting room, I’m inevitably faced with a moment of truth ... or, more exactly, a bunch of them. It has to do with those forms we fill out. You know the ones — they ask all kinds of questions that should be easy to answer, but aren’t. They’re about my ...

Though it happened over 70 years ago, I still remember it vividly. My mother had taken my brother and me to the Pontiac theater to see Disney’s latest release — “Alice in Wonderland.” I knew the story well, having had it read to me since I was hatched. Still, I was completely ...