Scott Simon

The X-ray Vision Of Mothers

Scott Simon — Sat, 11 May 2013 12:54:00 +0000

Mothers have eyes in the back of their heads. They may not show up on X-rays, but they're there.

Like a lot of youngsters, I used to get my mother to turn her head so I could search through her hair for the eyeballs she claimed to have back there, telling her, "No you don't! No you don't!" But when I'd scamper off to another part of the apartment and pick up an ashtray or fiddle with the window blinds, I'd hear my mother's voice ring out, "I can see you!

A 'Tough, Smart, Proud Town' Meets Terror With Determination

Scott Simon — Sat, 20 Apr 2013 15:08:00 +0000

People in Boston can speak for themselves. And do. Loudly, bluntly and often with humor that bites.

It's a city that speaks with both its own broad, homebrew, local accent — although no one really pahks thea cah in Havahd Yahd — and dialects from around the world. It is home to some of America's oldest founding families, and fathers, mothers and children who have just arrived from Jamaica, Ireland, Bangladesh and Ghana.

There are people in Boston who dress in pinstripes and tweeds, and tattoos and spiked hair.

How Did All Those People Get Inside Jonathan Winters?

Scott Simon — Sat, 13 Apr 2013 09:07:00 +0000

You can call anyone but Einstein a genius and start an argument.

Well, maybe Einstein or Jonathan Winters. The comedian, who died Friday at the age of 87, was immediately hailed by Steve Martin, Robin Williams and others as a genius.

He made hit comedy albums, was a regular on the old Tonight Show, memorably knocked down a gas station in It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, World and co-starred with and inspired Robin Williams.

But Winters was best known for creating a repertory company of characters that he carried around in his head.

Roger Ebert: Elegance and Empathy

Scott Simon — Sat, 06 Apr 2013 09:11:00 +0000

Roger Ebert was a critic, not a blowtorch. He could be sharp if he thought a movie insulted the audience, but had a champ's disdain for a cheap shot.

Many critics ridiculed the film Deep Throat when it came out in 1973. Who couldn't mock its absurdities?

Resurrected Frog Gives Us Cause To Brood

Scott Simon — Sat, 23 Mar 2013 12:47:00 +0000

The gastric brooding frog may be coming back. Does that give us a lot to brood about, too?

This week scientists at the University of New South Wales' Lazarus Project announced they have reproduced the genome — that bit of biological material that carries our genetic structure — of a gastric brooding frog.

The gastric brooder once lived in the rainforests of Queensland, Australia, and was declared extinct in 1983. It was not so named because it had the temperament of a Russell Crowe character, but because it gave birth through its mouth.

Snowquester Fizzles, But We're Humbled Anyway

Scott Simon — Sat, 09 Mar 2013 13:18:00 +0000

Snowquester fizzled.

Wednesday was more or less canceled this week in official Washington, D.C. An enormous winter storm bore down on the region, threatening ice, a foot of snow in the city (more in the suburbs), and wind and misery throughout the region.

Most of the federal government was closed. I know, I know. How could they tell? Local governments and schools, too.

Pianist Van Cliburn, Warmed Russian Hearts During Cold War

Scott Simon — Sat, 02 Mar 2013 13:11:00 +0000

Van Cliburn thawed out the Cold War.

He went to Moscow in 1958 for the first International Tchaikovsky Competition. When he sat down to play, Russians saw a tall, 23-year-old Texan, rail thin and tousle-haired, with great, gangly fingers that grew evocative and eloquent when he played the music of the true Russian masters — Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky, and Borodin.

Cliburn died Wednesday at his home in Fort Worth, Texas. He was 78.

"Van looked and played like some kind of angel," the Russian pianist Andrei Gavrilov told a Cliburn biographer.

Is Honest Abe's Stovepipe Hat A Fake?

Scott Simon — Sat, 16 Feb 2013 10:20:00 +0000

Abraham Lincoln's black stovepipe hat is an icon. It seemed to enhance his height, emphasize his dignity and, I suppose, keep his head warm.

There is a stovepipe hat at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield, Ill., soiled and slightly brown with age. Lincoln is said to have given it to William Waller, a farmer and political supporter in Jackson County, Ill., and kept by his family for decades.

But that veracity of Lincoln's hat has been questioned.

History Sometimes Rewards Those Who Are Sidelined

Scott Simon — Sat, 02 Feb 2013 10:12:00 +0000

You might look for a player along the sidelines in the Super Bowl on Sunday named Alex Smith and wonder, as he might, if he'll be the next Wally Pipp or Ken Mattingly.

Pipp was the Yankee first baseman in 1925 who had a headache and was told to take two aspirin and sit out the game. A young player named Lou Gehrig took his place — and stayed at first base for 14 years, becoming one of baseball's most storied players.

Pipp wound up working in a screw factory.

'Ebony' Editor Began Life Black In Nazi Germany

Scott Simon — Sat, 26 Jan 2013 10:28:00 +0000

The proudest moment of Hans Massaquoi's boyhood was when his babysitter sewed a swastika on his sweater. He was a 7-year-old boy in Hamburg who wanted to be part of the excitement of the times he saw. But when his mother got home, she snipped off the swastika.

He also wanted to join the Hitler Youth. "They had cool uniforms," Massaquoi wrote years later, "and they did exciting things — camping, parades, playing drums."

His teacher told him that he couldn't join, without quite saying why.

Cheating Might Buy Home Runs, But No Hall Of Fame

Scott Simon — Sat, 12 Jan 2013 15:27:00 +0000

The Baseball Hall of Fame is a tourist attraction, not a papal conclave. And the people who cast votes for the Hall are sportswriters, not the College of Cardinals.

But there was something momentous this week when the Baseball Writers Association elected no one to the Hall of Fame. Not Roger Clemens, who won a record seven Cy Young Awards. Not Barry Bonds, who hit a record 762 home runs. Not Sammy Sosa, who hit 60 or more home runs in a season three times.

But those glorious stats were amassed under suspicion of what's now known as the "Steroid Era" in baseball and possibly all sports.

Baseball Hall Of Fame Snub Draws The Line

Scott Simon — Sat, 12 Jan 2013 13:41:00 +0000

There was something momentous this week when the Baseball Writers Association elected no one to the Hall of Fame. Weekend Edition Saturday host Scott Simon remarks on the rebuke, rare in a sport where bad behavior is routine.

The Mayan Apocalypse: Worthwhile, In Hindsight

Scott Simon — Sat, 22 Dec 2012 14:48:00 +0000

Yesterday came and went, but I never finished Ulysses. I never took up skydiving. Come to think of it, I didn't even really finish cleaning up my closet before the "Mayan Apocalypse," which did not occur yesterday, Dec. 21.

I remember thinking,"Finally, I get a Friday off — but there's an apocalypse."

When I first heard that the Mayan Long Count calendar was coming to an end at the end of this year — which, we cannot repeat enough, even Mayans never meant was the end of the world — I began to mentally make a few plans.

Good Intentions, Complicated Results

Scott Simon — Sat, 08 Dec 2012 11:54:00 +0000

When news organizations, including ours, told of New York Police Officer Lawrence DePrimo buying boots for a barefoot man on the streets of Times Square one cold night last month, it seemed an irresistible holiday story: A kindly cop in a hard city helps a bedraggled man walking with blistered feet over some of the richest streets in the world.

The nameless, shoeless man became the best-known street person in America — just long enough to be recognized walking along the Upper West Side, where a New York Times reporter found him.

The man's name is Jeffrey Hillman.

'The Onion': So Funny It Makes Us Cry

Scott Simon — Sat, 01 Dec 2012 15:41:00 +0000

If satire had an Olympics, The Onion might have won a gold medal this week.