Mary Ellen Kelly

A rambling and rather strange interview with the raunchy pop-star Lady Gaga appeared this weekend on England’s Times Online. Columnist Caitlin Moran sets the scene for her session with Gaga (“arguably the most famous woman in the world”) by describing the decor of the star’s . . . . Continue Reading »

The Wall Street Journal reports today that several theaters in Manhattan are charging moviegoers $20 per adult ticket to see Shrek Forever After in 3-D. The jury is still out on whether 3-D is the way of film’s future or just another gimmick (Armond White has much to say on the subject in the . . . . Continue Reading »

On Monday, May 24, ten minutes into the premiere of a heavily promoted, live, interactive game show called  Million Pound Drop , viewers across Great Britain (but not in Northern Ireland) will see a thirty-second commercial that features three anxious-looking women; one is shown standing at a . . . . Continue Reading »

“ Was will das Weib ?” Sigmund Freud famously asked— What does woman want? A few months ago, in this space , we pondered the significance of the eyeless, and even headless, women who have proliferated on the covers of historical novels in recent years—novels that are, in large . . . . Continue Reading »

Nassau University Medical Center president Arthur Gianelli has cancelled the punishment originally decreed for eight nurses who refused to participate in an abortion at the East Meadow, New York, hospital. The hospital also has issued an apology to several of the nurses. On March 30, a patient who . . . . Continue Reading »

Every Sunday at 6 P.M., the Church of the Ascension, a Catholic parish on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, offers a Mass at which, according to the church website, “a jazz trio plays original compositions, arrangements of traditional hymns and music by composers such as Billy Strayhorn and . . . . Continue Reading »

One of the highlights of the current season at New York’s Metropolitan Opera was the house’s first-ever production of Giuseppe Verdi’s rarely performed Attila . The cast featured Russian bass Ildar Abdrazakov as the Hun of the title and included veteran American bass Samuel Ramey in . . . . Continue Reading »

As one of those baby boomers who came of age during the folk-music revival of the 1950s and 1960s, I was attracted immediately to Lauren Weiner’s “ Where Have All the Lefties Gone .” The article is a must for anyone who wants to know more about the music, its makers, and the . . . . Continue Reading »

On the afternoon of December 8—the Feast of the Immaculate Conception—Pope Benedict XVI made the traditional papal visit to Rome’s Piazza di Spagna to honor the Blessed Mother at the foot of the plaza’s Colonna dell’Immacolata. There, in the pope’s words, “Mary . . . . Continue Reading »

As someone who considers a well-chosen book the best of all possible gifts, my recommended first stop in the December issue must be the special Christmas for Readers section. Among the “ Thrillers and Throwbacks ,” Gyles Brandreth’s Oscar Wilde mystery looks especially promising, and . . . . Continue Reading »