Many world capitals have distinctive and evocative nicknames; examples include Paris (The City of Lights), New York (The Big Apple), and Beijing (The Forbidden City). These nicknames may come about solely through a historical quirk, or may refer to something specific to that city. The same is true of smaller cities and towns, whose residents […]

I recently wrote about the French street theater group Royal de Luxe on Interesting Thing of the Day. Known for their large-scale productions featuring giant marionette figures, there are many videos of their performances available for viewing on YouTube. Here are just a few of them: The Little Girl Giant: This video is very popular, […]

In recent weeks, a baby polar bear at the Berlin Zoo has caused a worldwide stir. Knut, as he’s called, was rejected by his mother at an early age, and has since been hand-reared by zoo staff. This situation has spurred some opponents to the hand-rearing of wild animals to comment that it would be […]

Although Easter is a Christian holiday, many of the traditions that have built up around it have their origins in earlier pagan celebrations of spring. That is why many of the sweet treats associated with Easter seem to have no connection to the Christian Easter story. However, since many of these goodies are symbolic of […]

I’ve recently started a blog about introverts; in addition to sharing my own experience, I write about various topics pertaining to introverts in general. In a recent post, I brought up the fact that there are many famous actors and actresses who are introverts, a phenomenon I can’t fully explain. I can’t prove that there […]