One man’s “ferragosto”
No European capital sheds its August citizenry as decisively as Rome. The exodus is a literal rite of passage. [...]
18. Spain: General Ohio
We first visited the American air base at Torrejón in the weeks following the Cuban Missile Crisis. It was an [...]
17. Spain: A word on bikinis
A critical part of my father’s job in Spain was to promote tourism using the many contacts he had accumulated [...]
Tiger and snake
During my first decades in Rome, which began in earnest almost exactly fifty years ago, I kept a cellophane scrapbook [...]
In the heat of the moment
It is 11 a.m. on what has for days been billed as Rome’s hottest summer day so far. This is [...]
16. Spain: Telefonica
The road to Telefonica began with a seemingly benign afternoon walk. My father, restless on a Saturday in September in [...]
In real life
Some weeks ago — my sense of time these days is admittedly fragile — I received an email from a [...]
15. Spain: O Rey
When two young women behold you standing stark naked and upright in a bathtub, and after their ritual sudsing of [...]
Heaven in the heavens
I once fell for a girl who loved telescopes. Not astronomy or even the cosmos in some youthfully existential sense, [...]
14. Spain: Fallen Salt
When I asked my father why we would be boarding a giant car headed to a place far outside the [...]
Days of aqua pazza
What season of the witch has befallen almost-summer Rome? None that I have ever before encountered. Day after day, now [...]