OGDEN NASH (1902-71) was the American master of light verse, an art that has fallen on hard times, since it requires both gentle jokes...

The life and films of ROMAN POLANSKI (born 1933) in turn foreshadow, stalk and haunt each other. His films seem apolitical, but the claustrophobia...

This was the view out my back window in New York City for more than ten years. That time (1979-1990) was the heyday of...

The very public tragedies in the life of TED HUGHES (1930-98) sometimes overshadow his work. He’s been blamed him for the murder/suicide of his...

Michael Pollan, author of The Botany of Desire (2001), The Omnivore’s Dilemma (2006), and In Defense of Food (2008), is a highbrow. I say...

Until he was nearly 50, CHARLES BUKOWSKI (1920-94), drinker, womanizer, brawler and writer, cranked out short stories and poetry only in his spare time....

Child of St. Petersburg, bug-maker for the KGB, and husband of the African-American dancer Lavinia Williams, LÉON THEREMIN (1896-1993) achieved immortality through the eponymous...

Unlike Baudrillard, Deleuze, and Foucault, exact contemporaries of his who were merely inspired by pop culture, the French-born comics writer RENÉ GOSCINNY (1926-77) cranked...