Featured
Time for the next wave in cinema
During the pandemic, once thriving movie theaters suddenly turned into ghost towns. And even though many have reopened since then, numerous people are still [...]
A “gentleman” undone
I am by nature impulsive. Some forty years ago that lifelong impulsiveness, complicit turmoil within the give-and-take of gender codes, conspired to produce among [...]
Street voices of yesteryear
Columnist Aldo Magagnino recalls a more colorful time, when peddlers came to the house and business was conducted through windows.
Thoughts on ethical culture
The restaurant at Paris’ Musée d’Orsay conjures up the bustling atmosphere of the train station this museum once was. The large clock gives way [...]
Boyhood Empire
8. Travel to Spain: French Pirates in Libya
When the time came, leaving London became a story about a corrupt king. But as all matters in my young life, it came to [...]
7. Travel to Spain: Jolly Good!
When my father first announced we would be going to live in Spain, he also explained that we would be traveling via London on Qantas. [...]
6. Memories of Truancy: Firebug
If alienating the local fire department and turning my beloved cats against me wasn’t enough—and it wasn’t—I soon set higher and more elaborately mischievous [...]
5. Memories of Truancy: Tom Sawyer
Go ahead. Blame it on Tom Sawyer. Why not? It couldn’t have possibly been my fault. I was, after all, only following in a [...]
In Case You Missed It
Persistence before aptitude
There I was again. Hunched over my paperback Bible, stricken with doubt and eager for inspiration. But this Bible offered [...]
February sun
Finally, a resplendently sunny midwinter day in Rome — after weeks in which the sun seemed to have gone on [...]
Two Battles of the Bulge
Going through old letters, columnist Madeleine Johnson encounters her long dead uncle, who was a soldier in his own private battle.
In deep winter
The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new. • Samuel Beckett, Irish novelist, short story writer, and playwright [...]
Discovering English literature
As a child, columnist Aldo Magagnino, discovered the pleasure of books, and then, during his university days, he found his way into English literature.
Film Review: “RRR”
To a lot of westerners, some Bollywood movies appear too over-the-top, too sensationalized, too bombastic, too whimsical, too clichéd. But [...]
Once upon a shoe
When I lived in Rome, I occasionally strolled through the fancy shopping streets near Piazza di Spagna. Mostly, I window [...]
On Christmas carols
The day was a cold one. The rooftops on Main Street in Flers, the town where I attended high school, [...]
Five stages of Christmas grief
At first, I didn’t believe it. One day I was arguing with my mother-in-law about where you place soup spoons [...]