My husband stalked into my office this morning to ask me a question. “Why is it that in the United States, where we can draw on the cultural traditions of dozens and dozens of ethnic and national groups, we have so few cultural traditions?” he wanted to know. I had no answer. All my […]
The problems for writers of historical fiction may be little different from those of anyone using “true events” as the basis of their stories. Sources may be more distant, but the real issue remains: which drama, among the welter of life, historical accounts, and potential metaphors will be portrayed? The Dig, a […]
Seeing the rabble at the Capitol and trying to sift through its ideologies made me nostalgic for the Cold War, a phrase used more often than you would think, by both sides. So I called Robert Koenig, who, after working in the midst of Cold War spies and researching several historical spies, is […]
I never had a Barbie doll, no doubt because she was pricey. My mother would have shrewdly eyed all those accoutrements, separately packaged, and nipped that problem in the bud. My friends had Barbies, though, and mainly what I remember is seeing them carried upside down, blood rushing to their ponytailed scalps. We […]
The other day, I found myself skimming through Shakespeare’s Richard III, the tale of a king who was vainglorious, scheming, and amoral. Breaking the fourth wall to confide in the audience, Richard makes a shudderingly fine villain. Breathless, we follow his Machiavellian rise to power and short, destructive reign. The opposite of a […]
In the third week of January, it struck me that I had heard virtually nothing about New Year’s resolutions. Nobody was cleansing or purging or making extravagant promises to themselves or anyone else. The few people who dared to vow a dry January poured themselves a strong whiskey five days later, after the Capitol was […]
On Inauguration Day, Kamala Harris wore glorious purple. First, I heard it was for the suffragists. I smiled, thinking back to quotes I once dug up about their careful choice of color, the Americans stealing the Brits’ purple because it represented “the instinct of freedom and dignity.” I was glad they did not stick with […]
For some, it is clowns. For me, it is buffets. They terrify me, because I always make bad choices. Once I sat down and realized I had dished up an entirely white plate for myself: potatoes, filet of sole, cauliflower… I am not sufficiently fond of my own race to make that a good decision. […]
Inaugural Day was bright and cold, with 200,000 small flags replacing an audience on the Mall, and the capital an occupation zone. The number of deaths from Covid passed 400,000, more than our WWII dead, as the sitting President winged away. None of it felt normal or right, but many watched in tears, […]
To be “made whole.” The phrase has always taken my breath away, even though I understand nothing of the common law and personal injury disputes in which it is invoked. How lovely, to be, in a single gesture, made whole. It sounds effortless, an act of grace, a wand waved over my head. Just imagining […]
