
Heard along the way
My memory contains many 50-year old snippets of overheard adult conversations. Misunderstood words and phrases would rise above the tinkling [...]

Noblesse oblige
Doris Lessing stirred a literary tempest in the 1980s with an experiment intended to illustrate just how hard it was [...]

When the Gestapo starts streaming
I have a friend who can watch any movie, no matter how suspenseful or violent, with complete detachment. She scoffs [...]

Vapid and vaunted
There are some words whose definitions you just never forget. One of these is “vapid”, which my mother used to [...]

Back to the Cold War
I started out with World War I. The YouTube lectures and books I consumed while working on a family genealogical [...]

The Italian dream conversation
I have found myself up against a reality I thought had set aside when I returned to the United States [...]

Rethinking the Vikings
An algorithm recently suggested that I learn about the Vikings. I took its advice and have just finished listening to [...]

When you become her
I usually avoid mirrors. But one caught me unawares the other day. To my surprise, the person in I saw [...]

The mind traveler
The last 12 months have been no time for travel, with 2021 looking not much better. To avoid quarantine regulations, [...]

Don’t call me Trump
During his successful 2016 run for the White House, and well into the early part of his presidency, Donald Trump [...]

On art and Elders
Some years ago, President Barack Obama ruffled feathers when he used art history as an example of an unproductive — [...]