Will Walking-Around Knowledge Save You?
In the digital age, something strange has happened to people’s perceptions of their own walking-around knowledge. Perhaps they feel the walking-around has been accelerated and covers more ground.
Dispatches
Watching Rashomon in the Age of Disinformation
The flip side of Kurosawa’s great film, revealing a murder mystery to solve, is also a world in which the search for truth, however difficult or naïve, must never be abandoned.
Oh God, What Will the Dogsitter Think?
The dogsitter, it turns out, is not the least judgmental—at least, he does not wince or smirk, and he sounds happy to return in March. The dog adores him. Relieved on all counts, we write a check and say goodbye. Pandora’s box has been safely entered and exited.
Digging into the Murder of Gallerist Brent Sikkema
Despite a ripple of shock and pity, default response to any stranger’s brutal murder, Brent Sikkema still feels remote to me. Then I read Vik Muniz, one of Latin America’s most acclaimed artists, admitting, “I have spent more than 30 years trying to pointlessly emulate his juggling of fearlessness, kindness, and sophistication.”
In Memory of Writer Stanley Crawford
Stanley Crawford married RoseMary, an Australian journalist, on Crete; they moved to Ireland, where they had their first child, then returned to San Francisco in the late sixties. Things were so tumultuous there, he says, that when friends invited them to northern New Mexico for a visit, they stayed.
When Kitsch Collides With Food (And Spirits)
(Courtesy of Empirical) Andy Warhol once said he loved Coca-Cola because regardless of who bought a bottle, it remained the same product for everyone. “A Coke is a Coke and no amount of money can get you a better Coke than the one…
Lost at sea with Richard and Linda Thompson
Harmony Voyages is booking 200 paying guests for the August 2025 Richard Thompson cruise, whereas the Saipan transported nearly 3,000 paid sailors, Marines, and midshipmen like me, along with a squadron of fighting helicopters and big boats to take Marines ashore.
New Documentary on Werner Herzog Does One Thing Well
Herzog is not my “favorite” director, but I have followed his art and career with interest. Even as a fan it is sometimes hard to know if he is being brilliant in this, banal, or manipulative.
Should Emotional Labor Be Reimbursed?
Real emotional labor is not about fragility, just humanity. It does not make us snowflakes; it keeps us resilient. It should not require a false self, only a considerate one that refrains from inflicting its internal dissatisfactions on others. And if more of us did emotional labor, that extra compassion and thoughtfulness would become a lovely habit.
Learning How to Fall
Drunks and babies fall softly because they are not arrogant. The rest of us fall hard—in love, off the wagon, from glory—and fall so often, you would think we would learn how.