the kid in Charlie Chaplin’s The Kid is the same guy who played Uncle Fester in the 1960s TV-series The Addams Family? The Californian actor Jackie Coogan (1914-1984). And that he was one of the first child stars in film history who upon reaching adulthood sued his parents (actually his mother and stepfather) over his squandered film earnings. That provoked the state of California to enact in 1939 the first known legal protection for the earnings of child performers, widely known as the Coogan Act - last revised in 2004. Continue reading

Let’s have another piece in the series Who Said That! Depicting what we people have uttered in a moment of elation, insight, inspiration, wisdom, despair - or any other emotion. The headline suggests anger, and is really a joke here, anger being such a poor indicator. It is instead those other emotions we are looking for. Try to guess/remember first who said that, and if you don’t know, you’ll see who it was at the very end of the article. Continue reading

This is the first in the series One Day in the Life of … of people from all walks of life. If we live to be 80, we have lived around 29,200 days. We get to 10,000 days at the age of 27. So there are plenty of days for all kinds of things to happen. Something spectacular. Something life-changing. Or just a pretty ordinary day that still held something very memorable. Continue reading

Here’s another one for the series “First Names First”! We present a chronological list of persons with their first name here, and your task is to pick one. Then follow the Wikipedia link to read about that person, and to see what if anything he or she could contribute your life with. Inspiration, passion, enlightenment, encouragement, empathy, etc. Give a couple of minutes of your life to this. Lives lived have all something worthwhile to tell us - let them! Continue reading

This is part in the article series Streets and Squares that provide some background information on street signs around the world. It is a fun way to learn about the history and culture of the cities you visit or even live in! This time we target Berlin which became the capital of the unified Germany exactly 27 years ago, June 20th 1991. Strasse - or straße like they write that double s in German - means of course street, and there are quite a few eponymous streets - and squares and parks - in Berlin. Continue reading

Let’s have another piece in this series Who Said That! Depicting what we people have uttered in a moment of elation, insight, inspiration, wisdom, despair - or any other emotion. The headline suggests anger, and is really a joke here, anger being such a poor indicator. It is instead those other emotions we are looking for. Try to guess/remember first who said that, and if you don’t know, you’ll see who it was at the very end of the article. Continue reading

From this day on there will be another constant presence in Journeys of Life, namely Monthly Latin. That old language isn’t of course an official language anywhere except perhaps in the Vatican State, and in the Catholic Church the use of Latin has greatly diminished since the old-style Latin Mass was phased out more than 40 years ago - in favor of local languages. Latin does remain the official language of the universal Church, but it is used mainly as the language of reference for translating major documents into modern languages. Continue reading

Here is another piece in the series “First Names First” - all for pure entertainment! We present a chronological list of persons with their first name here, and your task is to pick one. Then follow the Wikipedia link to read about that person, and to see what if anything he or she could contribute your life with. Inspiration, passion, encouragement, empathy, etc. Give a couple of minutes of your life to this. Continue reading

[caption id=“attachment_2622” align=“alignleft” width=“223”]Jack London in 1903[/caption] Jack London was one of the first writers to become a worldwide celebrity and earn a large fortune from writing? He was born in 1876, died fairly young at the age of 40, but amassed a fortune from novels such as The Call of the Wild (1903) and White Fang (1906), and the short story To Build a Fire (1902/1908) which many critics assess as his best. Continue reading

This is an article series depicting what we people have uttered in a moment of elation, insight, inspiration, wisdom, despair - or any other emotion. The headline suggests anger, and is really a joke here, anger being such a poor indicator. It is instead those other emotions we are looking for. Try to guess/remember first who said that, and if you don’t know, you’ll see who it was at the very end of the article. Continue reading

Have you read the novel One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn? I have, long time ago. It describes a single day in the life of an ordinary prisoner in a Gulag camp, and now, that book gives life to a new article series in this Journeys of Life: One Day in the Life of people from all walks of life. If we live to be 80, we have lived around 29,200 days. Continue reading

This is the second piece in the series First Names First and it is all for pure entertainment! We present a chronological list of persons with their first name (or the name they mainly use) here, and your task is to pick one. Then follow the Wikipedia link to read about that person, and to see what if anything he or she could contribute your life with. Inspiration, passion, encouragement, empathy, etc. Continue reading

This is the second article in the series Streets & Squares. This time it is about New York City - the place that never sleeps. For those of you who have visited the city, it is no news that its five boroughs, especially Manhattan, are filled with numbered avenues and streets, i.e. with no credit to any historical persons. But there are a few addresses with names too, and here are a few of them. Continue reading

This is one in the series of articles titled First Names First and it is all for pure entertainment! We present an alphabetical list of persons with their first names here, and your task is to pick one. Then follow the Wikipedia link to read about that person, and to see what if anything he or she could contribute your life with. Inspiration, passion, enlightenment, encouragement, empathy, etc. Spend a couple of minutes of your life with this. Continue reading

[caption id=“attachment_2081” align=“alignright” width=“409”]Birth certificate of Marilyn Monroe[/caption] This is a series of articles titled “First Names First” and it is all for pure entertainment! Below you can see the list of first names - male and female. Your task is to pick one (with a link). Then choose one of the persons with that first name, follow the Wikipedia link to read about that person, and then see what if anything he or she could contribute your life with. Continue reading

This is the first in the article series Streets and Squares that provide some interesting background information on street signs around the world. It is a fun way to learn about the history and culture of the cities you visit or even live in! We start out with Helsinki, the capital of Finland that celebrated its 100 years of independence December 2017. The picture here depicts the Senate Square Church behind Market Square with the South Harbor in front where the Silja Line passenger ferries depart to Stockholm, Sweden. Continue reading

[caption id=“attachment_1153” align=“alignright” width=“398”]On Rue André del Sarte in Paris[/caption] Ever wonder when you are walking along streets abroad - or even in your home country - about the names in the street signs? Who gave the name to a particular street, square or park - and on what grounds was he or she bestowed the honor? Here follows a new series of articles which will go through cities in different parts of the world. Continue reading