Sent to Paris in 1927, by his father, Dinu Grigorescu visits the Bains du Ballon d'Alsace, a notorious establishment, where he meets Razvan, a fellow Romanian who instructs him in the way of the world.

This collection could possibly represent the first flowering of post-postmoderism: visions of the world that re-imagine reality as more realistic than we can imagine. A compelling presence of a holograph and the up-to-the-second feeling of the most advanced art.

From the moment she met Samantha, star of the school basketball team, on her first day at Daniel Boone Middle School, Allison Drake felt she had found a friend, something she needs badly since her brother died and her father left--but as their friendship grows it begins to evolve into a deeper emotion, and in North Carolina in 1977, it is not easy to discover that you might be gay.

In 1983 seventh-grader David Da-Wei Horowitz has a lot to worry about--his bar mitzvah is coming soon, his Jewish and Chinese grandmothers argue about everything, his teammates for the upcoming trivia contest, Scott and Hector, do not like each other, he is beginning to notice girls, and Scott has persuaded him to begin digging a fallout shelter just in case the Cold War heats up.

People who are anonymous and whose lives are usually ignored in traditional historical accounts are no less important than more prominent individuals in influencing the flow of events. These ordinary, but often heroic, people are the focus of this course. Each of these lectures looks at history from a nontraditional perspective, that of the weak and marginalized-- the poor, sick, disabled, and elderly, as well as the refugees, slaves, women, children,...

In the 1960s and early 1970s a dizzying array of musical artists congregated in Laurel Canyon to create much of the music that provided the soundtrack to those turbulent times. But there was a dark side to that scene as well. Many didn't make it out alive, and many of those deaths remain shrouded in mystery to this day. Charles Manson was integrated into the scene more than most would care to admit, as well as various political operatives, up-and-coming...