TV commercials during the Super Bowl earlier this month continued to attract nearly as much attention as the game itself, and one of the most popular of the entries had an unintentional local flavor. The ad, featuring heavily-accented Arnold Schwarzenegger, was built around the actor’s inability (like many a Rhode Islander) to pronounce that final […]
Gerry Goldstein
Gerry Goldstein, an occasional contributor to What's Up, is a retired Providence Journal editor and columnist who has been writing for Rhode Island newspapers and magazines for 60 years
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Gerry Goldstein: Razor-sharp humor on long-ago roadsides
The Federal Highway Administration, which apparently never took a crash course in humor, is absorbing some jocular flak over its recent recommendations for restraint when states install amusing traffic safety signs. These digital messages have been popping up for several years, and in Rhode Island, you may have seen the likes of: “There are plenty […]
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Gerry Goldstein: On the road when pitfalls lurked en route
Fledgling 2024 marks 60 years since passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, legislation that outlawed discrimination in businesses and other public places. So it’s astounding — and telling – that in the year recently ended, the NAACP issued a formal advisory against travel to Florida, which it said “has become hostile to Black […]
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Gerry Goldstein: If we’re the role models, beware
Although I’m a member of the oldest generation and a bit shaky on computer nuance, you wouldn’t consider me a Luddite – a person who by nature opposes new technology. I’m no particular fan of the legendary English weaver Ned Ludd, who in the 18th Century supposedly smashed some new-fangled knitting machines and railed against […]
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Gerry Goldstein: Changing names that ruffle feathers
We know a rose by any other name would smell as sweet because Shakespeare told us so. Now the question arises: would a bird by any other name tweet as sweet? The answer is a definite “yes,” according to the American Ornithological Society, which has announced plans to rename all birds currently named after people. […]
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Gerry Goldstein: Angling for some seasonal wisdom
Since we’re deep into the Christmas buying season – the season when long ago three wise men were wending their way to Bethlehem – it seemed appropriate that on Facebook recently, a shopper begged for sage advice. A vintage bamboo fly-fishing rod and reel had captured his fancy in an antiques shop, but before committing […]
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Gerry Goldstein: Nothing was half-baked about this ‘thank you’
Without much fanfare, print newspapering in Rhode Island suffered some body blows recently, and though my view on this surely dates me, I grieve the situation. In August, two community weeklies, the Chariho Times in South County and the Coventry Courier, shut down. Now, two daily newspapers that have served the Blackstone Valley since the 19th Century, the Woonsocket Call and […]
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Gerry Goldstein: When whispers metastasize, hate sinks roots
To be Jewish in America these days is disturbing, even for those of us fortunate enough to have lived mostly free of antisemitic slurs or worse. Sensitive gentile friends are prone to note their recent astonishment and dismay at the rising level of openly anti-Jewish speech and actions. For us here at the Greenville hobby […]
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Gerry Goldstein: By the book, moving to a strange new land
At a soirée 140 years ago in New York City’s Academy of Design, 1,500 people kicked off a fundraising exhibition to finance a pedestal for the aborning Statue of Liberty. According to the New York Times, “Most of the gentlemen wore evening dress, and many of the ladies were arrayed in elegant costumes.” During opening amenities on Nov. […]
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Gerry Goldstein: On this day, kiss your inhibitions goodbye
“A kiss is just a kiss,” asserted composer Herman Hupfeld in 1931 when he wrote “As Time Goes By,” the song that years later would so enhance the iconic film Casablanca. Not to quibble with the talented Mr. Hupfeld, but events down the generations have shown that a smackeroo can be much more than “just” a kiss. […]
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Gerry Goldstein: On the wing, reminders of what matters
“The world is too much with us,” wrote William Wordsworth more than two centuries ago. Wordsworth, who would later spend many years wearing the mantle of England’s poet laureate, complained in verse, “Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers; – Little we see in Nature that is ours…” He should only know what we […]
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‘Sage’ advice on expression, still timely after a century
Last month, police in Marion, Kan., (population 1,902), raided the community’s 154-year-old weekly newspaper, seizing computers, cell phones, and other material in what many deemed a violation of federal law protecting journalists. The uniformed intrusion was part of an unsettling coincidence. A century before and fewer than 50 miles away, an icon of American newspapering […]
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Gerry Goldstein: Portrait of a ‘problem’ that endures
I am staunchly “woke,” and there’s a guy who has my gratitude for reminding me of it every day. This would be Norman Rockwell, the late “illustrator” once disdained by many a critic, but whose reputation as a legitimate artist has strengthened considerably over the decades. The reasons I admire Rockwell are many, one being […]
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Gerry Goldstein: A pond where it’s easy being green
What goes around comes around, especially here at Shalom Acres, our little hobby farm in Greenville where an octogenarian who once caught frogs as a 12-year-old now does so again. These days, though, I brandish a camera instead of a net. Seven decades on, why still the fascination with these creatures whose forebears once hopped […]
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Gerry Goldstein: Fur, feathers, squeals, hogged some of White House spotlight
The reasons Donald Trump is abhorred here at Shalom Acres, our little hobby farm in Greenville, are too many to be counted, but among them is the fact that he was one of few American presidents to keep no critters in the White House. We find this suspicious, since we share our place harmoniously – […]
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Gerry Goldstein: A historical brew, in one small coffee cup
For years, a tiny piece of history has resided with other memorabilia on my desk, all accrued over decades of chasing the news. The deep-sea coffee cup beside one of standard size. (Gerry Goldstein photo) But it was not until last month’s disaster on the Titanic-bound submersible Titan that I pursued the story behind my thimble-sized Styrofoam coffee […]
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Gerry Goldstein: They said ‘I do,’ but the state moved to put them asunder
Since June is a popular month for weddings, it’s logical to review what was observed on the 12th: “National Loving Day.” And since you may have missed it, here’s a compelling fact about this low-profile holiday: It was named for a genuine Loving couple – Richard and Mildred Loving. The irony about “National Loving Day,” […]
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Gerry Goldstein: Seeing life from both sides and fighting on for a cause
When frail, 110-pound George W. Jorgensen turned 18 in 1944, he tried to enlist in the wartime Army, which took a peek at his wispy frame and rejected him. But leave it to the Army, a few months later it drafted Jorgensen and he served two years as a clerk at Fort Dix, N.J. before […]
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Gerry Goldstein: From an oceanic disaster, links to the Ocean State
Those new and ghostly 3D scans of the Titanic, showing in remarkable detail the “unsinkable” liner more than two miles under the sea, reflect an ageless tragedy with strong links to Rhode Island both past and present. Not the least of these involves ocean explorer Robert Ballard, who discovered the wreck in 1985 and even […]
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Gerry Goldstein: A new phrase is launched into the language
A few minutes after Elon Musk’s big rocket blasted off last month, momentary public befuddlement ensued when engineers from his SpaceX Corp. tweeted that the craft had experienced a “rapid unscheduled disassembly.” To put it more clearly, it exploded. The euphemism was tailor-made for the late comedian George Carlin, known for puncturing bloated verbiage. But he […]
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Gerry Goldstein: Lady Luck no help in this job search
Being an equal-opportunity essayist, I invite any ladies reading this to speak up if they feel insulted by what follows. Well, never mind what follows – in the eyes of some, that opening sentence itself contains an insult. Word came recently that in Easthampton, Mass., the school board rescinded the hiring of a new superintendent […]
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Gerry Goldstein: New words – When it rains, it pours
When a routine prescription seemed slow getting filled recently, I called the pharmacy to see if a problem was at hand. Said the pharmacist: “It’s a supply chain issue.” His response put him in the avant-garde of today’s culture, because the dreaded “supply chain” invocation is now an official entry in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary. The […]
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Gerry Goldstein: Unhurried Baseball on deck for a prod
Baseball is a languid exercise, unsuited to impatience. As the aging, legendary pitcher Satchel Paige once noted, “I never rush myself. See, they can’t start the game without me.” The writer Edward Abbey described baseball as slow and sluggish, “with frequent and trivial interruptions, offering the spectator many opportunities to reflect at leisure upon the […]
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Gerry Goldstein: Old wisdom that resonates anew today
We’re deep into Black History Month, with culture wars continuing unabated, especially when it comes to what should be taught in the classroom. Arguments over curriculum are nothing new; the classic example played out nearly a century ago amid bombastic arguments by two of the nation’s premier orators and lawyers, William Jennings Bryan and Clarence […]
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Gerry Goldstein: The highs and lows of falling in love
With Valentine’s Day approaching, we are reminded that love over the generations has had its admirers and its detractors, depending on one’s personal experience. As an optimist and a believer that life offers constant opportunity for enrapturement no matter previous disappointments, I hold with the poet Maya Angelou, who stood by the idea of never […]