Robinson’s Way

The art of writing is the art of discovering what you believe. • From Gustave Flaubert, the 19th century French writer famous for "Madame Bovary." Jogging is a favorite activity of mine, and one might [...]

So tonight, gotta leave that nine to five up on the shelf, and just enjoy yourself. • A line from Michael Jackson's 1979 song "Off the Wall." As soon as I fit my leg through [...]

There is no rationality in the Nazi hatred: it is hate that is not in us, it is outside of man. We cannot understand it, but we must understand from where it springs, and we [...]

The restaurant at Paris’ Musée d’Orsay conjures up the bustling atmosphere of the train station this museum once was. The large clock gives way to a panoramic view of the city. It was a few [...]

The day was a cold one. The rooftops on Main Street in Flers, the town where I attended high school, were lightly capped with snow. Snow is rare in this area of Normandy; so rare, [...]

In 1958, Queen Elizabeth II and jazz legend Duke Ellington met for the first time at an arts festival in Yorkshire. The following is an imagined version of a later encounter between the two at [...]

A letter from Will Keppler Robinson, young writer on the cusp of adulthood to James Baldwin, a writer who needs no introduction: Dear James, Wherever you are, I hope this finds you well. I am [...]

The lights are regulated correctly, there is a perfect distance between my bass and the amp, between my mouth and the mike. I glance toward my friend holding his vibrant red electric guitar. He starts [...]

On a day when everyone searches for peace, columnist Will Robinson muses on the history of a protest song.

Living in a time and place in which religious faith is unfashionable, France-based columnist Will Robinson decides to believe anyway.

In the Brittany seaside town I visited in July, situated in the northernmost region of Finistère (literally, land’s end), there comes to pass a somewhat enchanted event my host calls the pêche miraculeuse (or miraculous [...]