*SPOILER ALERT**QUESTIONABLE ANALYSIS ALERT**CONTAINS INFORMATION BASED ON WIKIPEDIA* Plot summary, The Big Chill (1983): Seven alumni from the University of Michigan in their thirties, known for their political activism in the 60s, converge on the South Carolina vacation home of Harold and Sarah Cooper to attend the funeral of fellow classmate Alex, who committed suicide while living with the Coopers. After the burial, everyone stays for the weekend. Harold and Sarah are living a respectable middle-class life, with Harold about to sell his small business to a large corporation. Sam is a popular TV star on a “Magnum P.I. type detective show. Meg is a single real estate attorney in…

In the Sunday paper was an article devoted to the current trend of “decluttering”, a phenomenon complete with its own reality-TV shows, “40 Bags in 40 Days” social media challenge, self-help books, etc. A “pioneering” study by the University of California at Los Angeles in 2001-2005 identified the extent of the clutter crisis our families are facing right now. Darby Saxbe, assistant professor at USC, observed, “They (the long-suffering families in the study) were surrounded by stuff to the point where it seemed emotionally and physically stressful and taxing for them.” It was clear that we have found the enemy, and he is us. What was reassuring was the living…

The phrase “beware the Ides of March”, a warning from the soothsayer to Julius Caesar in Shakespeare’s play, is as well-known as Caesar’s cry “Es tu, Brute?” when his best buddy drove his knife into his back. In Roman society, Ides referred to the first full moon of a given month, which usually fell between the 13th and 15th. In fact, the Ides of March once signified the new year, which meant celebrations and rejoicing. It was also a band from the inner Chicago suburb of Berwyn that hit the charts in the late Sixties and early Seventies. “Vehicle”, a horn-driven ditty from 1970 about a slimy dude offering goodies…