On Burns Night
As we know it, "Auld Lang Syne" is a poem by Robert Burns, but that is simply a later version [...]
Confessions of an opinionated cook
I am a seasoned cook of some odd years, much too numerous to mention here. The cooking saga began at [...]
Tragedy or comedy?
A question came up recently whether the films “Parasite” (2019) and “Kinds of Kindness” (2024) should be considered comedies or [...]
Joy of learning
The third day into the influenza that I got on Christmas, I noticed a few tea mugs had accumulated in [...]
Chronicle of Clignancourt
In April 2024, my university’s Palestine Committee, comprising (but not limited to) students, began to organize general assemblies (assemblées générales [...]
Turnpike beauty
I don’t think anyone has ever said the New Jersey Turnpike is beautiful. But this morning it is. An encyclopedia [...]
Daddy done gone
Robert Frost staked out a childhood spot as a swinger of birches. Me, I was a Frankenstein swinger. Long before [...]
Review: “The Vegetarian”
Originally published in 2007 and praised for its layered, Kafkaesque surrealism, The Vegetarian by Han Kang received the 2016 Man [...]
Photo essay: Cody rodeo
Life is a dot-to-dot. After graduating from an East Coast university in 1987 where I studied journalism, I found [...]
Horrors of December
You may consider the Christmas season a time of fun, and while most Christmas traditions are sweet, especially the ones [...]
Hallowed hall
Nestled between a cannabis dispensary and a Celtic dive bar in a particularly seedy corner of San Francisco’s culturally diverse [...]