Featured
Movies: “Annette”
New film critic Steve Piazza begins his run with a look at a highly-acclaimed but immensely quirky musical that comes out bittersweet.
NEW FICTION: “Lights in Darkness”
“Lights in Darkness” is new fiction by prize-winnning author Mathew Lebowitz, who has been a frequent contributor of fiction to the magazine over the years
Booing England, hailing Italy
With typically wry humor, the English came up with a saying to comfort married women that had absolutely no interest in having sex with [...]
From fearful to fearless
I became a health reporter in Rome years ago. Not officially. That would come a couple of years after I moved back to America, [...]
REM Twitter
My increasingly scary 10-year-old Rebecca has officially entered her "Elon Musk" phase. It was probably there all along, just waiting for double-digits to leap [...]
Bad gene rising
I have long held the belief that conservatives are genetic mutants. Now, trends in recent science are highlighting actual genetic factors linking certain traits [...]
Enemy of your enemy
The modest amount of insight I have come to acquire about the tortured history of Afghanistan in recent decades I owe to a translation [...]
What’s New
From fearful to fearless
I became a health reporter in Rome years ago. Not officially. That would come a couple of years after I [...]
REM Twitter
My increasingly scary 10-year-old Rebecca has officially entered her "Elon Musk" phase. It was probably there all along, just waiting [...]
Bad gene rising
I have long held the belief that conservatives are genetic mutants. Now, trends in recent science are highlighting actual genetic [...]
Enemy of your enemy
The modest amount of insight I have come to acquire about the tortured history of Afghanistan in recent decades I [...]
Heard along the way
My memory contains many 50-year old snippets of overheard adult conversations. Misunderstood words and phrases would rise above the tinkling [...]
A miraculous catch
In the Brittany seaside town I visited in July, situated in the northernmost region of Finistère (literally, land’s end), there [...]
Nine lives in red
The feeling hits me every August, as if I had a moody inner clock lodged in my head. I get [...]
Journalists in the crosshairs
One cannot be worried enough about the future of journalism. The profession is becoming a riskier business than ever before, [...]
Agony in plain sight
Frequent readers of this column may have noticed that I never personalize them in any way, preferring to instead stay [...]