Lunatic campaign
Half a trip to the American lunatic fringe came with Donald Trump’s unlikely flirtation with the idea of running for [...]
Bulletproof
In his near-desperate quest to regain the American presidency Donald Trump differs from many of his predecessors. He not only [...]
39. Liners: MS Cesare Augustus, 1970
Slowly hauled toward adolescence, and later adulthood, as if by a weary stork eager to deposit me at the foot [...]
38. Liners: Cristoforo Colombo, 1963
A full three years between my first and second transatlantic crossings. The second, like the first, was westbound, from Gibraltar [...]
37. Liners: Île de France, 1957
My first and most tyrannically absolute memory of childhood, one free from the grainy coaxing of black and white photo [...]
36. Beach Dreams: The Last Summer
My family’s annual June sojourns at the Wilmington Avenue cottage in the resort by the sea covered four years, from [...]
No solace in yesteryears
Nostalgia is a congenital liar. It makes gilded that which was not. I take as examples my seventy-something Italian friends [...]
35. Beach Dreams: Axis
The place where the boardwalk ended, a carpet of stitched-together matchsticks surrendering to endless, disinterred sand, seemed to me like [...]
34. Beach Dreams: Jane Be Good
In June of 1959 my favorite beach car was made by a company called Nash. I came upon my favorite [...]
For what it’s worth
The war in Gaza presents critical thinkers with keen and complex dilemmas, many brought to the fore by fierce anti-Israel [...]
33. Beach Dreams: The Sway of the Toe
Beach life came with pleasures and admonishments, the latter (including the widespread failure to venerate my castle projects) I simply [...]