Don’t talk about the weather. Don’t ask anybody where they’re from or where they went to school. Oh, and don’t worry if they don’t want salad: Chances are they’ve eaten more vegetables in the last week than you have. That’s … Read more
And I met her, we got along fine, but I was hanging around in a hotel room in Sydney, Australia, for about a week. Really what that week entailed was an accumulation of reading materials and underwear. I just was … Read more
If something funny comes my way — an article about dog whisperers, let’s say — I am sometimes reduced to responding with the shorthand “LOL,” though the truth is few stories make me Laugh Out Loud. The exception: a piece by … Read more
Woody Allen has written and directed an original film nearly every year since 1969. He has written several Broadway plays, published dozens of pieces in The New Yorker and given innumerable interviews. As far as I know, though, he has … Read more
Late summer is carnival season, when fairgrounds across Middle America sprout blooms of creaky steel whirling machines and stands of sugary fried food, jostling us from our languor and threatening nausea en masse. Which is, of course, part of their … Read more
If you’ve been following the recent reports out of Detroit, you know conditions there are dire. This is hardly new. For decades the dominant narrative about the city has been one of failure: economic collapse, physical devastation, racism and violence … Read more
I’m old enough to have practiced as a state prosecutor for a while, but I still laugh at fart jokes. Regardless of the flatulent punch line, Larry the Cable Guy’s trademark quip, “I don’t care who you are, that’s funny … Read more
When I write a story about someone else, I keep me, myself and I, out of it. I feel strongly that I, and my proxy pronouns, do not belong. But a few years back, I wrote about someone … Read more
Joan Didion finds herself counting syllables. If this is part of her brilliance, and it is, it’s largely because of who she is as an observer; meticulous but detached, intimate yet removed. These paradoxes are how she draws you in. Read more
Sunday’s Washington Post carried the kind of story that can leave you limp for days. Rare anymore is the narrative that has such a visceral effect, but Eli Saslow’s piece about Jackie and Mark Barden, whose 7-year-old son … Read more
