About the author
A Film Divided
There is a scene in Steven Spielberg’s new film Lincoln in which abolitionist Thaddeus Stevens (Tommy Lee Jones, clearly relishing every moment) stares down his Democratic opponents in the House of Representatives and, clothed in righteous indignation and the audience’s sympathetic moral sentiments 147 years on this side of the 13th Amendment, utters what is meant to be a brutal takedown of all simpering slave-st...
Where We Left the Octopus
What particularly struck us, as we scanned the Lonely Planet travel guide for things to do in Croatia, was the fact that you may ask the monk precisely one question, to which he will answer or not answer; or respond to with a question; or not respond at all. It should be said right off the bat that Sviječ had gained some small notoriety over the years for his exploits. (And, oddly enough, for a well-received chap...
Passports Four, Five and, Finally, Six
Continued from Passports Four, Five and Six. My sixth passport was a long time in coming. Five weeks, six weeks, seven, eight. I began to worry. Perhaps there was some sort of special code that postal employees could punch in for those who were clearly fanatics, damning all the crazies’ passports into an institutional abyss in lieu of denying them in person. Much safer that way. Less need to staff federal ag...
Passports Four, Five and Six
“It’s like your whole life’s in there,” a friend remarked once about my fourth passport, flipping through the many stamps on its worn pages with a twinge of jealousy. At the time I was flattered. After all, I had traveled so much on it—mostly through my previous work—that I got new pages sewn in, for free, at the U.S. embassy in China. There are few more tempting grounds for self-aggrandizem...
The Democratic Pleasures of the NYC Health Department Rating System
There is this whiskey bar around the corner from where we live. They sell oysters, too. It’s the kind of place that mines a very specific vibe and mines it very well. Picture floor-to-ceiling windowed façades separated by tastefully stained strips of dark wood. Imagine low wisps of orange light ensconced in vaguely European fixtures—gracefully set above white candles in cute little vintage crystal holders—to...
