Collected by Alexander Afansyev, adapted by Erica Furgiuele While the narrator talks, a pantomime: the Frost King stands with the Mother and Daughter, a family portrait. Slowly, they separate, until the Stepfather and son have replaced the Frost King in the portrait.) Not very long ago, in a small village in Russia, there lived a[…]

Edited by Italo Calvino Father King: Over and over it has been told that once upon a time there was a king and queen. Every time this queen had a baby, it was a girl. The king, who wanted a son, finally lost patience and said, “If you have one more girl, I shall kill it.”[…]

Once there was a poor man whose wife had a son. But since they had seven children already, they were not happy about the birth of the eighth. The man went out begging and collected some clothes and food for the christening, but nobody wanted to be godfather to the beggar’s son. Nor did they[…]

Have you ever been in a large forest and seen a strange black tarn hidden deep among the tall trees?

There’s a new sheriff in town, and her name is Laurie Patton–the recently installed, first female president of Middlebury College. Her remarks at last weekend’s Alumni Leadership Conference covered a myriad of topics–but the one that struck me the most was her talk of the so-called hierarchy of majors. We enjoy categorizing fields of study[…]