In the grand metaphor of life, where the ocean is the world and we are the surfer getting battered against some rocks, it’s comforting to know that there are people like Australian Ross Clarke-Jones.
My dad died in February, unexpectedly. I got 32 great years with him—more than some, less than others.
The line between holiday gifts and New Year’s resolutions is less clear than it might seem. Unless you and your gift recipients have fallen into the terrible trap of typecasting—Here’s one more item for you with a golf joke on it, Jolly Person Who Plays Golf!—presents are aspirational: Here’s something you’re not…
I would like to announce that I am not a girl-blogger seeking anonymity, as many of our commenters suspect.
You wanted to do something nice for your girlfriend—maybe even a little corny. And, hey, look, there’s a supermarket with a flower section on your way home from work! Buying flowers sounds easy, until towers of flowers are staring back at you (labeled with scientific names almost nobody actually uses), as you try to…
The business of writing obituaries may seem, at first glance, a morbid affair. Just think of the title of Gay Talese's 1966 Esquire profile of the New York Timesobituary writer Alden Whitman: "Mr. Bad News." But obituary writing is far from depressing and some of the best non-fiction writing of the past 20 years has…
When I was sixteen the Regency Theater on the Upper West Side ran a Buster Keaton-Charlie Chaplin-Woody Allen revival for a few months. That was my introduction to Buster and it was love at first sight. I adore Chaplin too but Buster speaks to me in a more direct, personal way.
Bowling is a ritualized behavior that requires strength, coordination and an often decidedly idiosyncratic technique in order to aestheticize a communally sanctioned exposition of controlled violence. Orrr . . . maybe it's just a fine example of the sort of loud, explosive fun that humans sometimes get up to indoors.…
Forty-five years ago, on Oct. 16. 1968, U.S. sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos stood atop the medal podium at the Olympic Games in Mexico City, bowed their heads and raised black-gloved fists during the playing of the American national anthem. Millions of their countrymen were outraged. As in bug-eyed,…
Maybe it's just banal nostalgia, but photographers working years ago seemed to take better pictures of ballplayers in their locker rooms than photographers do today.
Bill Eppridge, one of the greatest photojournalists who ever picked up a camera, a longtime LIFE and Sports Illustrated photographer and the man behind the harrowing, iconic picture of a fatally wounded Robert Kennedy lying in a pool of blood in a Los Angeles hotel kitchen in June 1968, died on Thursday in…
For several years in the late Sixties, while (largely) lesser fighters vied for the heavyweight title and while his great nemesis Joe Frazier was powering his way through the ranks, Muhammad Ali was effectively in exile. Barred from the prizefighting ring for refusing induction into the Army ("War is against the…
If you don't already follow Longform I recommend it as a great place to find choice material. (Bookmark it already.)
Diggin' through the LIFE archives I came across this 1940 article on Pat Laursen, National Skeet Champion.
It lasted roughly a thousand years (give or take a few centuries). It generated mind-boggling advances in science, technology and medicine. It saw magnificent cathedrals rise at Chartres, Salisbury and scores of other cities and towns. It witnessed the first rumblings of a kind of proto-democracy in England and…
When Muhammad Ali beat Sonny Liston in their May 1965 title-bout rematch in Lewiston, Maine, a legend was born. Or, more accurately, a legendary controversy was born. Ali (who ditched his Cassius Marcellus Clay "slave" name for his Elijah Muhammad-sanctioned Muslim moniker after defeating Liston in their first title…
No one who was playing professional baseball the year that I last watched an entire All-Star Game from start to finish is still playing today. Not one single player. Which is a fancy way of saying that I haven't watched an All-Star Game in decades. Now, I understand that literally hundreds of baseball fans are…
This summer in Pittsburgh, the Pirates are messing with peoples' hearts again. After countless seasons of sub-.500 finishes, occasional spurts of excellence followed by long stretches of crappy play and, saints preserve us, a decades-long slog of mediocrity unmatched in the majors since ... well, ever, the Bucs are…
