The only movie I can clearly recall seeing on the West Side screen is Lady Sings the Blues in 1972. My parents were finally splitting up the same year that movie came out and I took to the darkness in movie theaters from that point on as my own private Idaho of insular thinking, mourning and disappearance. Darkness: visible.  

There’s one reason I’d really like to have children someday and one reason I want to get my tubes tied the next chance I get, and they both happen to be the same thing. I don’t want to stop being a kid myself.  

Playwright Deborah Zoe Laufer has found a vein of universality in her new play, Leveling Up, using the world of online gaming in which players vie for higher levels of power and accomplishment, as a metaphor for growing up.  

For the last few months, my oldest daughter has been debating current events with her best friend. My wife and I have been witnesses to her burgeoning political and cultural awareness, and it has taken me back to my own awakening.