A Portrait of the "Bro" as a Young Man
In some ways, the 'bro' is not new. He's there, for example, in Philip Roth's "Goodbye Columbus" as Ron Patimkin, the big athletic empty-headed brother of Brenda. What's different is that in the 1960s,...
View ArticleLife, Death, Church, and ALS: a Conversation With Nancy Butler
Once upon a time Nancy Butler lived in the Beltway and used her MBA to secure a high paying job with a defense contractor. But Butler had considered herself a devout Christian since the age of 9, and...
View ArticleThe Nose: Cuckie Monster and Crimson Tide
Last week's Republican debate created chaos on the internets: Trump insulted Fox's Megyn Kelly, which naturally led to ladies live tweeting their periods at the wanna-be President. And a new slang was...
View ArticleAnother Supposedly Fun Nose We Will Never Do Again
“Every journalist who is not too stupid or too full of himself to notice what is going on knows that what he does is morally indefensible. He is a kind of confidence man, preying on people's vanity,...
View ArticleThe Inner Circle of Hunter S. Thompson
Hunter S. Thompson was one of those writers whose lives start to matter more than their art. From almost the beginning, life and art were intentionally interwoven. Thompson's outsized appetites for...
View ArticleRemembering Nick Carbone, Hartford's Unlikely Power Broker
As deputy mayor of Hartford, Nicholas Carbone was a blend of old and new -- a bare-knuckles, lapel-grabbing pol wrapped around a dreamy urban visionary.
View ArticleA Cartoonist's Mother's Love Affair With a Cartoonist
I first met cartoonist Bill Griffith back in the 1980s. I arranged for us to tour a Boston-area Hostess Twinkie plant, which sounds like a weird first date but makes perfect sense if you're familiar...
View ArticlePhilippe Petit's "Perfect Crime"
Philippe Petit made his walk between the towers of the World Trade Center over 40 years ago. He stayed up on that wire for 45 minutes, made 8 passes between the towers, got down on his knees, and he...
View ArticleAll The Scramble's Men
Bob Woodward thought he knew everything about Watergate. Then Alexander Butterfield, now in his late 80's, told him there were other stories never spoken of. Woodward focuses on these stories in his...
View ArticleThe Not-So-Secret Book Club: Purity
Jonathan Franzen has become that rare American author whose life and moods and sulks make news. From his friendship with David Foster Wallace to his fractious encounter with Oprah Winfrey, Franzen may...
View ArticleA Cartoonist's Mother's Love Affair With a Cartoonist
I first met cartoonist Bill Griffith back in the 1980s. I arranged for us to tour a Boston-area Hostess Twinkie plant, which sounds like a weird first date but makes perfect sense if you're familiar...
View ArticleThe Nose's Person of the Year is Mx...
The New York Times and Washington Post are adding new forms of address and pronouns for people who haven't chosen a single gender. Research indicates that ending a text with a period seems...
View ArticleVin Baker's Journey from Basketball to Barista
Vin Baker was an Olympic basketball player and four-time NBA All Star. The journey from University of Hartford to professional basketball got him rich quick, but it was a lifestyle he couldn't keep up...
View ArticleA Look Back at the Best Jazz of 2015
It's a yearly tradition: Jazz critic Gene Seymour releases his list of the best jazz albums of the year, and musicians Jen Allen and Noah Baerman gather 'round the table with their own picks. If you're...
View ArticleThe Scramble: Steve Collins on Resigning from Bristol Press and the...
On the surface of things, there would seem to be little connection among the following: two small daily newspapers in central Connecticut, the wealthy owner of a multinational casino and resort chain,...
View ArticleHistorical Fiction Is Not All Made Up
Many of our ideas about history are drawn from historical fiction. Who, for example, is Thomas More? Is he the tragic hero of the play and movie, "A Man For All Seasons"?
View ArticleThe Nose Reminisces on 2015
I assembled seven Nose panelists and asked them to pick a topic we used during 2015 from my list of twelve. Of the five left over, four of them were connected to the modern cycle of internet shame:...
View ArticleThat's Shocking!!
When the photographs of Robert Mapplethorpe were exhibited at the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford in 1989, there were protesters on the street and lines around the block as thousands queued up to pay an...
View ArticleYou Want Me To Eat What?!
Okay, this show comes with a trigger warning.We're going to talk about things people eat, and some of those things are not for the squeamish. This is a conversation about disgust, and specifically, how...
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