February sun
Finally, a resplendently sunny midwinter day in Rome — after weeks in which the sun seemed to have gone on [...]
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, [...]
4. Memories of Truancy: Tree Lord
At the very front of the small house we owned in Washington, D.C. two score and some years ago, a [...]
3. Memories of Truancy: High-heeled Math
Just around the corner from the pencil marks were a flight of stairs that led to the second floor—in my [...]
2. Memories of Truancy: Pencils
Every six months, in another epoch, my parents would pin me gently to the scribbled wall and mark how much [...]
1. Memories of Truancy: Mr. Major and His Minor
This much I know for sure, no tricks or embroidering: I arrived in Washington, D.C. from France toward the end [...]
Boyhood Empire: An Introduction
To read memoirs with any pleasure requires a leap of faith facilitated by considerable intellectual mischief. Memoirs cannot be trusted [...]
A day in the life
January 15, early morning: Queer, sullen days in the city of sun, whole rows of them, their darkness casting a [...]
Bringer of bread
In the dog days of early July, when all cooling breezes resolve to leave the city, the aging screenwriter who [...]
Suicide blonde
The woman I love — one part Ryszard Kapuściński, another part Michael Herr, a third a dirty blonde Brenda Starr [...]
Italian pocket change
The latest Italian government — and in Italy, “latest” seems apt, since government can be as fluid as gender — [...]
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 [...]