Everyday Olympics
The Paris Olympics tell the human story: ambition, aspiration, discipline, hard work, luck, serendipity, glory, limelight, and then the biggest dream of all, and with a half-inch miss, catastrophe.
Dispatches
Only Good People Can Be True Friends
Friends are trampolines, waiting to bounce you back up if you fall from the heights. With a real friend, Cicero says, “you are strong even when you are weak.”
Breaking Joins the Olympics—a St. Louis BBoy’s Take
Olympic judges, take note: the stylistic elements in breaking are what give a person room to be innovative, and that is where the creativity lives. So does the musicality, at which which St. Louis bboys (and the handful of bgirls) excel.
Aground: TCR at Sea
We headed up the Pungo and quickly ran into the line of thunderstorms we had been trying to beat. Visibility was zero, and the wind high enough that we had to retreat from the river to wait it out.
Choose Your Trip: TCR at Sea
Chris paid a lot of money for the boat. It was the trip he wanted to take, a way of life. So far, over several weeks of hard work, first high and dry in a boatyard in a Florida summer, then on this “shakedown cruise,” he has gotten everything coming to him.
A Raised Fist Can Pack a Punch
Try to imagine Barack Obama, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, or either of the George Bushes making a clenched fist their symbol. You cannot.
The Photography of Gaucha Berlin
Gaucha Berlin's photography is more than beautiful. It is gentle and honest and shows you the tiniest bits of beauty on the planet in ways you have never troubled to see them.
Apocalypse Another Day: TCR at Sea
I tried to imagine what I would do if I was suddenly alone, since I do not have the experience to dock this boat in a falling tide among 80-foot yachts tight in their slips. If it was the apocalypse I could figure the range based on fuel in the tanks and choose where to ground it. The boat did not cost me anything, and after all it would be the apocalypse.
Do Not Tempt the Universe: TCR at Sea
The bigger the venture, the more the universe messes with you.
Transiting The Ditch: The Common Reader at Sea
A friend texted recently to say he had bought a new yacht. He asked if I would like to help him transit it from Fort Pierce, Florida, to his home port in Maryland, a trip of about a thousand miles up the East Coast. “I can probably do that,” I said, spilling my coffee.