Writing is Like Making Love
The best thing about writing for oneself is that you always own your own work and can do exactly as you like with it.
Dispatches
Why David Eckstein Deserves a Bobblehead Doll
I am not a collector of sports memorabilia, but I did collect a box of David Eckstein cereal, EcksO’s, and I have a feeling that, on July 12, I will possess a David Eckstein bobblehead doll as well. Play ball!
Put a Time Machine in Your Closet
When Miyako Bellizi designed costumes for Marty Supreme, she spent “a lot of time thinking about Timothée Chalamet’s underwear.” One-piece union suit, typical in the early 1950s, or the newfangled boxers? She wanted to be period correct.
Hers was a professional choice. For the rest of us, wearing vintage…
World Cup Tourists Gushing About the U.S. (Really?)
My poor friend. She sent me this nice article from the BBC about how travelers to the World Cup “are discovering little-known slices of Americana away from the host cities.” The word “triggered” would be apt. I had already seen the social media reels and posts—and in my deep…
Busload of Faith to Get By
I took a Flix bus to Chicago, determined to be there for the Juneteenth opening of the Obama Presidential Center.
“You took a what?” friends said, bemused that I did not fly, drive, or even take the train. But I love buses. I love the way everybody shows up prepared,…
How Shopping Became Miserable
One foot on a tangle of tree root, I looked down at my beloved Merrell hiking boots and noticed big, frayed holes on both sides. Time to spring for a new pair. To be loyal, I went—in the flesh—to REI, but they had only waterproof hiking boots. “Tariffs,” muttered the…
Why Dutch Pluralism and Tolerance Need Bragging Rights
What seems to prevail in the Dutch zeitgeist amid current challenges, and contrasted against alarming trends of far-right populism in the United States and across the world, is the lesson that tolerance and pluralism do not sustain themselves. No, tolerance and pluralism must be nurtured and, in some cases, even bragged about.
“Even a Nobody is More Powerful Than You Think”
Predictably, a court in Russia banned the documentary film “Mr. Nobody Against Putin,” ruling it “propagates extremism and terrorism”; Russia has named Talankin, the film’s main character, a “foreign agent.”
The Man Was Not Talking About Fancy Food!
“Those poor brutish Epicureans that have nothing but the meer husks of fleshly pleasure to feed themselves with.” ~John Smith, 1660
How did we get Epicurus so wrong? Foodie websites, luxury magazines, gourmet shops…he would be aghast. His goal was to remove pain and fear, not pile up pastry. Limited…
The Painful Exhilaration of Downsizing
We have given ourselves two more years, ample time to continue spreading out in this friendly, comfy, century-old house. Two more years, my mother’s daughter whispers, to keep weeding, scrubbing, repainting the wrought-iron fence…. By the time we leave, we will be thoroughly ready for a smaller, more practical, inevitably…