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Toward the revival of diplomacy
A war is child’s play with morosely adult consequences. A bully tries to snare a weakling as a means to assert himself. The weakling [...]
Film: “Everything Everywhere All At Once”
Though one might marvel at the thought of multiverses, being bewildered at times is excusable. And, as if this increasingly popular concept isn’t challenging [...]
The spirit of Catanzaro
Italy has long been modern Europe’s foremost repository for offhand clichés. Italians, according to other Europeans, simply could not (and would not) do right [...]
Sue, New York, and I
Our daughter Laura and her long-term fiancé, Alessandro, got married a few weeks ago. The newlyweds traveled to Miami and embarked on a fifteen-day [...]
Why actors act
I was in Edinburgh for the Fringe festival, where I was putting on a show I wrote. It’s the largest art festival in the [...]
The Queen’s Suite
In 1958, Queen Elizabeth II and jazz legend Duke Ellington met for the first time at an arts festival in Yorkshire. The following is [...]
Back to normal
The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits. • Albert Einstein I have gone from washing laundry in a bucket [...]
Tomato terror
Once upon a time, caterpillars almost put columnist Suzanne Dunaway off of gardening — but she found a way to defeat them.
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Why actors act
I was in Edinburgh for the Fringe festival, where I was putting on a show I wrote. It’s the largest [...]
The Queen’s Suite
In 1958, Queen Elizabeth II and jazz legend Duke Ellington met for the first time at an arts festival in [...]
Back to normal
The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits. • Albert Einstein I have gone from washing [...]
Tomato terror
Once upon a time, caterpillars almost put columnist Suzanne Dunaway off of gardening — but she found a way to defeat them.
Bare male flesh
It was not my express intention, but during my travels this summer I saw a lot of naked male flesh. [...]
A quiet fortune
Every August, a box arrives on my front porch, marked “fragile,” although there’s nothing breakable inside. Just perishable. A dozen [...]
Under the rainbow serpent
The poet arrived at my doorstep on a rainy winter’s night, like the traveler in Italo Calvino’s story, led by [...]
Following a thread of Anderson’s
Paul Thomas Anderson has proven he knows his way around the most inaccessible regions of the human heart. An explorer [...]
Solitude in Mustang
Up on the roof of the world, people's priorities are different and humanity is saner.