I think we can say scientifically that the universe perks up when we approach new ventures. The data is in. The universe gets interested. You gotta be careful out there. Before I left for this trip, I was rushing around but paused to eat some dry stir-fry on the couch while watching […]
A friend texted recently to say he had bought a new yacht. Ok, I said. He asked if I would like to help him transit it from Fort Pierce, Florida, to his home port of Havre de Grace, Maryland, a trip of about a thousand miles up the East Coast, in the […]
While I would not want to imply that he who dies with the most news obituaries wins, you have to hand it to Kinky Friedman, whose death was reported by both The New York Times and Rolling Stone. For a songwriter, musician, and writer in the United States, that is a one-two punch anyone […]
After the American presidential debate aired last week, a woman in Switzerland, a Facebook friend I know nothing about, said the USA is doomed either way. Fair enough. The debate reflected very badly on everyone including the moderators. The golf sequence alone should bring us shame before the Swiss. I will not add […]
I am interested in representations of immortal figures witnessing human life, such as Wim Wenders’ watcher-angels in Wings of Desire; the flirtatious death-angel in All That Jazz; Death as Joe Black; and the title figure in “The Man Who Rowed Christopher Columbus Ashore,” a story by Harlan Ellison. I once wrote about […]
Craig L. Symonds’s The US Navy: A Concise History (Oxford UP 2016) is a book that in its brevity (116 pages), simple texture, and insights could have been written only by a master of the subject. Symonds is emeritus at the US Naval Academy and was a visiting professor at the US Naval War […]
Documentaries on subjects we have known in youth offer nostalgia and the promise of something we did not know back then. Jim Henson: Idea Man (streaming on Disney+) provides both—a celebration of the Muppets and details about their creator that many fans may not have known. The film is directed by Ron […]
Matthew Korbfort called me when he was still Matthew Stenfort. I answered the phone in mild amazement. Matthew was in his early twenties and, like everyone his age I knew, he never called anyone. He had never called me. If he was not so young, I would have been full of dread that […]
My friend Larry called to warn me about the “evil Robin Hood” he had discovered furthering “the degeneration of societal norms.” Larry owns an art gallery and is tuned in to all manner of associated subjects, from Braque’s congruence with Picasso, to prison art, to intellectual property issues. The thing he saw […]
It is not always what we might call “fun” to go new places, talk to people, and experience things to try to understand who they are. Sometimes you get a museum with a good gift shop; sometimes you get The Wicker Man. We might call this “educational” instead, but more often […]
