The reach of his magnum opus, Gulliver’s Travels, on our culture cannot easily be overstated. Although those of us who have memories before 1994 will probably recall the image of the Lilliputians tying Gulliver down as the most iconic image of the book, its biggest influence in modern times comes from the name Swift invented for the deformed creatures Gulliver encounters near the end of his journey: Yahoos. Yes, Swift is responsible for creating what eventually became the name of one of the Internet’s most…

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Adolph Marx was born, later legally Arthur Marx because he disliked the name Adolph. However, it was under his stage name of Harpo Marx he would become best known, as the always silent, usually lecherous, harp virtuoso of the Marx Brothers. While Chico’s piano-playing captivated me as a child because of the tricks he did with his fingers while he played, Harpo’s musical moments always touched me the deepest because they so totally broke from the ne’er-do-well characters he played throughout the rest of the…

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Although later generations may only know of Leisure from reruns of Empty Nest, those of us who lived through all the eighties will never forget Leisure’s brilliant turn as Joe Isuzu, the Isuzu television spokesperson whose lies about the company’s cars were so over the top ("It gets twenty million miles per gallon" and the like), and delivered with such a deadpan charm, that Leisure may be one of the best commercial actors of my lifetime; certainly Joe Isuzu presaged Jon Lovitz’ more popular "Liar"…

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Garry Kasparov, himself then the age of 22, became the youngest world chess champion by defeating Anatoly Karpov. Kasparov’s win crossed over into the mainstream news of the time not only because of his youth, but because he was already preaching political ideas that Western countries, still in the grip of the Cold War, approved of. I was 9 at the time of Kasparov’s victory, and my father had already gotten me interested in chess, but I think Kasparov being in the news as I…

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