It Used to Be Mine
Ever since Marie Kondo’s Netflix series, Tidying Up, hit the screen on January 1, 2019, a lot of us, it seems, have come to realize that our lives are full of things that no longer “spark joy.” Every time I…
Dispatches
The Kominsky Method: Wonder Boys Meets Golden Girls?
If you liked Michael Douglas in Wonder Boys, you will enjoy The Kominsky Method, a Netflix series that started in 2018. Its first season is complete with eight episodes, and Season 2 is reported to be in the works. Wonder Boys (2000) is about a guy who teaches better than…
The Bird Trapped in the Airport
“Women who die alone at midnight contributing to the end, to lost time, to the rain and flies, seeing the bird they saw trapped in the airport surviving by the water fountain” —Mary Ruefle, “Women in Labor” A few years ago, I…
Putting the Goth into March Madness
College basketball fans everywhere know what March portends—the 2019 NCAA Division I Men’s and Women’s Basketball Tournaments. This post is not about any of that televised hoopla. No mentions of basketball or an impressive three-pointer will you find here. Nope. This assortment of words is about a different type of…
“Boris, Brighton Beach in Brooklyn, New York”
“I moved here from Russia as a young boy. My dream was to become Mr. Universe. You know, like Arnold Schwarzenegger? One day while training I fell to my knees from a bad dizzy spell. I was 34 years old. Later that week my doctor asked to have a series…
Slowing Down To Catch a Breath: The Economics of a Recession
The hard thing about economic cycles is that it is very hard to predict when an economy is sliding into a recession or moving to a period of sustained growth. Imagine that you are a fish in a fishbowl oblivious of the universe outside. Being in a recession is a…
Mardi Gras, New and Old
People outside Louisiana think of Mardi Gras as a New Orleans celebration, but those in the state who live outside New Orleans do not think of it much and have their own traditions. Louisiana Travel, a state booster site, breaks down Mardi Gras celebrations into…
Ars Moriendi
If Us Weekly’s popular segment “Stars – They’re Just Like Us” were to compile celebrities’ personal moments from social media instead of paparazzi-stalking celebrities at seafood counters or walking dogs named after pieces of fruit, the American public might have to think more deeply about what binds…
The Gumbo Cook-Off Down Here
The World Famous Cajun Extravaganza and Gumbo Cook-Off was held down at the Civic Center this morning. Gumbo is one of those traditions in Louisiana, like Mardi Gras itself, that is both down-home and serious business. Thousands filled the exhibition hall, and spilled onto the lakefront patio, as 60…
To Save a Life
This week, Dr. Caitlyn Collins, an assistant professor of sociology at Washington University in St. Louis who studies gender inequality, asked what it would take for the United States to consider providing safe, affordable, quality childcare for its citizens. To underscore the urgency of the question, Collins…