The Baby Boomer Experience: Today and Tomorrow

  It would seem unthinkable by today's standards: the most popular character on television was a blue-collar bigot from Queens, New York — who, despite his prejudices, was often considered lovable at the same time. But that was the case for much of the 1970s with the character Archie Bunker on  All in the Family , which debuted in 1971. For five years, it was the most-watched show on television. The show was groundbreaking for openly talking about serious issues of the day. While other shows featured surface-level plots,  All in the Family 's storylines often involved deeper discussions of racism, women's rights, the Vietnam War, homosexuality, rape and more. To keep reading this article, click here.

  Arthur Ashe Jr. always wanted to make a profound change. Before he stepped on a tennis court, he perused encyclopedias and absorbed everything he could about London, France and Australia as a child. His plan was to play in Wimbledon, the French Open and Australian Open, so he needed to be well-versed on not only the tournaments but also the host countries. Johnnie Ashe understood his older brother’s desire better than anyone, but even he found himself blown away by Arthur’s focus when they were younger. After Johnnie cold-clocked a third-grade classmate who called Arthur a sissy for playing tennis, Johnnie asked his brother, “Why tennis?” After all, they were playground kids, so there were other options out there. “Because I want to be the Jackie Robinson of tennis,” a 12-year-old Arthur told Johnnie. To keep reading this article, click here.

  The Broadway show ran for 732 performances. The first film adaptation won 10 Academy Awards. And the fictional love story between a former gang member and the sister of a rival gang’s leader spawned more than a dozen revivals and tours. Now Jerome Robbins’s beloved musical,  “West Side Story,” is on theater screens  once again. The new film, directed by Steven Spielberg, premiered Friday. Often ranked   among the best musicals of all time, “West Side Story” was much less vaunted when it debuted on Broadway in 1957. Audiences and critics were discomfited by the violence and juvenile delinquency portrayed in the show, an adaptation of “Romeo and Juliet” that trades rival families for warring street gangs — one Puerto Rican and the other White. “The radioactive fallout from ‘West Side Story’ must still be descending on Broadway this morning,” critic Walter Kerr  wrote in the New York Herald Tribune . Theatergoers were flummoxed that the show not only lacked the frothiness of other music

  Sylvester Stallone  was not born to be a star — which made him the perfect choice to play the titular  Rocky  Balboa in his breakthrough 1976 film,  Rocky . Prior to making his Oscar-winning blockbuster, Stallone spent years roughing it as a no-name actor in New York, appearing in a handful of low-profile films throughout the early '70s (including the 1970 softcore pornographic film  The Party at Kitty and Stud's , which he later called "horrendous"). He first earned critical acclaim by starring alongside Perry King and Henry Winkler in 1974's  The Lords of Flatbush , a low-budget drama following four teenage, leather jacket-wearing miscreants around the streets of Brooklyn. To keep reading this article, click here.

  The stand-ups of today are still feeling the shockwaves of Richard Pryor’s impact on the artform. The late comedian, writer and actor was, like his contemporaries Lily Tomlin and George Carlin, a key figure in moving the medium beyond the setup/punchline delivery into more freeform storytelling that left ample room for improvisation and allowing material to evolve naturally.  And he was the kind of comic mind that found joy in comedy that appealed to both our intelligence and our basest instincts. That’s why an early album like  Craps (After Hours)  can feature tracks like “President Nixon” and “Religion” alongside “Snappin’ Pussy” and “Fartin’.”  What girds all of Pryor’s work, no matter how frivolous, is his understanding of what he represented to his audience. This was a black man who survived unfathomable abuse and horrors growing up, an addiction to cocaine as an adult and the casual and blatant racism in America.  When he had a microphone in his hand and an audience in front of

  Ever since the dawn of man, humans have been looking for ways to make themselves feel better. Going beyond food, shelter and clothing…humans enjoy feeling good. Music, perhaps beating on a log with a stick, has long been one of the methods of soothing the savage beast. Another soothing method, of course, has been drugs in their many forms. Hundreds of songs about alcohol and marijuana, “hootch” and “grass,” respectively, have been written. The song “Feelin’ Good,” recorded by Ry Cooder, has the lyric “Feelin’ good, feelin’ good…all the money in the world spent on feeling good.” That about sums it up, no? To keep reading this article, click here.

  The rock concert: we put on our favorite band shirt and wait for the lights to go down to watch the performers who created the soundtracks of our lives. That experience is like no other. Marc Myers takes us on a journey from the genesis of the term “rock ‘n’ roll” to the epic  Live Aid  relief benefit in  Rock Concert: An Oral History as Told by the Artists, Backstage Insiders, and Fans Who Were There.  In his book, Myers shares the stories of the artists who were at the front of the stage, like Joan Baez, Roger Waters, Todd Rundgren, and Ronnie Spector. Additionally, you’ll hear from concert promoters, stagehands, club owners, graphic designers, sound engineers, and others who worked to bring the concert experience together. To keep reading this article,  click here.

  When  The Electric Company  debuted in October 1971, television hadn't seen anything quite like it. Psychedelic graphics, wildly creative animation, mod outfits, over-the-top characters and sketch comedy all functioned to serve the same goal: teaching kids to read.  Brought to you by the Children's Television Workshop (CTW) — the same producers behind  Sesame Street , which debuted in 1969 —  The Electric Company  won two Emmys, aired on more than 250 public TV stations and became a teaching tool in thousands of classrooms nationwide. To keep reading this article, click here.

  It had been so long since I had walked down those steps into a poorly lit foyer with low-hanging ceiling tiles, where the scent of buttery popcorn filled the stagnant air, and posters hung limply off the walls. That’s right, I went to my local cinema: I actually saw a film with other people, on a big screen, and wore proper outdoor clothes. After nearly two years of viewings from my sofa, largely in pajamas, this felt unnerving — and exciting. Granted, the seats were still uncomfortable, the chocolate was still overpriced, and a large family walked in late, discussed loudly where to sit, and then chose the seats right in front of me. But there was also surround sound, laughter, and Daniel Craig.  COVID-19 had kept  No Time To Die , the latest James Bond film, out of the cinemas for as long as it had me; it was supposed to be released in April 2020, but when cinemas shut down around the world, 007 (or at least Universal Pictures) refused to stoop so low as a streaming platform. And so

Based on Truman Capote’s 1958 novella of the same name, the 1961 Blake Edwards movie “Breakfast At Tiffany’s” seems now to be a time capsule for a period that has been long gone.   But despite that, Holly, the character played by Audrey Hepburn, retains her charm and relevance, as a pop icon, fashion icon and also as a timeless mirrored image of a certain type of person that will always exists. To keep reading this article, click here.

There is much that currently divides the country, but one thing will unite us this week: the love for the humorous humanity of the comic strip, "Peanuts." October 2 marks 70 years since Charles M. Schulz first debuted his United Features Syndicate "Li'l Folks" (as he originally titled the strip) and it has been 20 years since he penned his farewell comic strip. Yet Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Lucy, Linus and the rest of the "Peanuts" gang remain a beloved, timeless pop culture reminder of life in the second half of the 20 century. To keep reading this article, click here