Todd was near the end of his set by the time I got to the winery. I raised my hand in greeting as I entered, and he said, “Hello, Sir,” into the microphone. I was not sure he recognized me. We went to high school together. He was a class officer, polished and […]
When my sons were little they liked to play dinosaurs with me. They were the Velociraptors; I was a Parasaurolophus standing dully by the watering hole, waiting to be taken down. My then three-year-old would (with my help) jump onto my back and clutch me around the neck; my six-year-old would run at […]
There is fascination in the sudden appearance of a dozen cranes, the size used to build skyscrapers, spaced alongside a highway bridge over a major river. It means things are in the works, forces are at play. Something slouches to be born. How wide and varied the world is! How much there is […]
Sixteen months ago I worked as an extra on the third installment of Guardians of the Galaxy movie. It has just been released, and we went to see it opening weekend. Sitting down in the theater with a tub of popcorn and a Diet Coke, I felt like my elder son who, […]
Yesterday marked the centenary of the birth of Joseph Heller, author of Catch-22, Something Happened, Closing Time, and other novels, story collections, plays, and autobiographical nonfiction. Heller was prominent among the riotous talent, often seen as lacking in decorum or respect, that emerged in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Catch-22 (begun in […]
We had a sealed-off bedroom in our little ranch house when I was growing up. In it were my mother’s curations of treasured items, including her mother’s china, stacked by size on the floor with newspaper between each plate, and a blanket draped over it. There was a second set of china—in my […]
Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, Belgian documentarians and filmmakers, have an astonishing number of Cannes wins in their filmography: seven of their twelve films won awards in various categories at the festival over the years, including two Palme d’Ors (for Rosetta, 1999, and The Child, 2005), the only Belgian films to receive that honor […]
The traveling Banksy exhibit looked good in the online ad, and there was a warning of “high sell-out risk.” I bought quickly, for two of us, mine a VIP ticket for extra access, so I could write about everything there might be to see, and it came with an exhibit poster. A few […]
“I was unqualified for the job,” Anthony Bourdain says in the documentary Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain (2021), directed by Morgan Neville. His creative team agree, in archival footage and contemporary interviews. Bourdain had never really traveled anywhere when he had success with his first book, Kitchen Confidential, and he was almost […]
It can be hard to match the quality of tacos with that of your happiness sometimes. I thought the tacos and margaritas festival would do it: Not just food and drink, but a taco-eating contest, hot pepper-eating contest, live music, and the athletes of micro wrestling (Micro Jackson, Syko, Baby Jesus, […]
