2016
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Director’s cut
In a decade of war, the U.S. lost 4,500 men in Iraq, about the number of casualties the recent fight…
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Ormi ci siamo
The era of the conductor, replaced by ticket machines. Ibought my first pair of Italian shoes from a family-owned store…
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Bombardiers
Donald Trump and Ted Cruz: insult central. By year’s end, one of a cluster of Republican Party politicians will stand…
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Bowie
Only a few insiders knew that Bowie, 69, was gravely ill with cancer. Ifirst heard the name Allan Jacks in…
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Sunovrat
I should find her a full-length mirror, she said. In a dream, I fell in love with a woman from…
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Reaping
What happened, mortality wonders, to the good old days? Mortality can use a good week from time to time, one…
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M for me
No gum chewing allowed… Ionce charged regularly into elementary school with my sloppy jaws in motion. “Get rid of that…
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Nameless and troubling
The Republican debates have led some foreign commentators to speculate on the sources of American anger. More than 60 years…
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Bankers in the basement
Beware small alien lords. Ilive in a self-styled country of miracles, a realm of savants, mystics, skeptics and conspiracy theorists.…
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Mr. Lonelyhearts
My next move, he says, advancing the story line. What do I tell a 46-year-old friend who calls me holding…
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Peeing
Students around the ditch where Vincenzo Amendola was found, shot twice in the head. In early February a jobless 18-year-old…
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Hurricane Trump
Rage unites around anyone willing to serve it. The best businessmen are shrewd opportunists. Why then should the rise of…
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Bagman
The horizontal Sisyphus bears the same burden as the one pushing uphill. Iwas hauling home two bags of groceries from…
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Animus
Detail from “Skyscrapers and Tunnels,” 1930, by Fortunato Depero. Postmodernism was coined at a time when cars, planes and skyscrapers…
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Blood jingles
In Istanbul, Damascus and Beirut, the show just goes on. Terrorism is now a kind of brand. It is like…
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Optics
When a left eye feels like a volcano, call it Stromboli. Without my glasses my doctor looks like Galileo. Or…
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Process this
Man and machine, or the other way round? On stormy days I stalk and insult words and expressions I consider…
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Product come balled
One day, in my half-blind glory, I decided to act. Iam half-blind but I also have pigeons. And seagulls. Not…
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Christopher Stonewall
These days, boyish indulgences can run into a wall. Iwas not a politically correct child. At age 11 I started…
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Timeline
House Speaker and former vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan has refused to back Donald Trump. Fifteen years ago, following the…
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Reaching out
Talk to me about reaching out. The last time I reached out was to touch someone. This meant moving my…
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Ship of fools
Charts and graphs and allegations of terrorism, until they fade. Can a culture talk too much? Can its interconnected citizens…
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Insider
John Gunther had intended “Death be Not Proud” as a private memoir for friends, but was persuaded to publish it…
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Cells
Red, moving… My American friend likes weather. He uses his Smartphone to visualize its mood swings. He speculates what part…
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What in ear?
Who was jack? Fifty years ago I reluctantly gave up on building my spacecraft. This wasn’t an easy decision since…
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Orlando
Knowing of “internal” wars is an impossible task. Between 1650 and 1950 there were roughly 40 wars involving three or…
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Stayers and leavers
Leavers carry a heavier burden. Leaving — whether a job, a man, or an untoward situation — usually produces irrational…
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Wrexit
Peter Finch as Howard Beale: “All I know is that first, you’ve got to get mad.” There are times when…
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Job’s cat
My favorite cat had a stroke over the winter. My doctor friend gave me the news and added the cat…
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The last day
French police labeled the suspect in the Nice truck attack as an “oddball” who was not considered dangerous. Acentury ago,…
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20/100
Eye drop bottles don’t look much like themselves. Eyes are the windows to the soul until the latches age and…
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Call it August
Rome’s summer sun is a tyrant. Ijust returned to Rome where it’s hotter than July, probably because it’s August. Heat…
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True craving
Riches and wealth have a way of keeping adolescence alive for a lifetime. If you’ve ever known an extravagantly powerful…
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Sounds of silence
Finally, the return of the gecko. Ispent the last 12 months of August on the American East Coast where I’d…
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Go away, John Birch
Frank “Hondo” Howard was Washington’s premiere slugger. Eight presidencies ago I threw out the first ball at a doubleheader between…
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Pterodactyls
Breaking news straight from the center of the earth. The last 15 days of August are traditionally a mass media…
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Futon matter
Detail from Magritte’s “The Mysteries of the Horizon.” In the dead of night I pose semantic riddles. I lie down…
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Yes he can
Once upon a time: Obama in 2004. In 2008, for those disposed to Camelot-style political romances, Barack Obama was a…
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Leaving tomorrow
Sometimes an idyll isn’t one when you get there. Ihave an acquaintance who when I see him talks only about…
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I AM NAKED 🙂
Drop your guard for a second, and nakedity beckons… Yesterday, a charlatan email somehow penetrated my spam filter, which my…
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So You Want to be President?
For both Clinton and Trump, more reality show than debate. Words in action shift gears. Argument can take the place…
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Blind screws
Small screws included, if you can see them… Laugh to keep from crying, you say, and I do. Pour a…
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Vilify me
The Tower of Babel just keeps on growing… Aword I fell for in prehistoric times was hypochondriac. I heard a…
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Stoning the glass house
The New York Times, albeit carefully, has repeatedly put Trump in its mocking crosshairs. In the wake of the September…
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The stink
Baseball is doing an admirable job of providing a civil, joyous and unifying example of intense but fair competition… The…
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Vibrator
Italy can seem like a red-light district. Up high, when the earth below does its undulating samba, you think of…
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Red in the middle
Stunning, said The New York Times, but mostly to those of its own ilk. It is a persistent shortcoming of…
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Detention hall
When resentment is prized, no order makes sense. Ilived in Washington, D.C. for most of my boyhood and teens. Three…
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Writer’s block
Breaking things to Quaker, and others, was difficult. My job at my parents’ cocktails parties was a simple one. I…
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The boss
Slim Pickens in Kubrick’s “Dr. Strangelove”: damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead. It is fast becoming clear just what Donald…
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Greetings, John Glenn
It didn’t matter he’d landed. The wave was essential. When John Glenn orbited the Earth I devised a plan to…
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The cherry orchard
A vanishing act, followed by grief. Inever learned to grieve. When my father died in my presence I remained calm.…
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Helios 21
Wanting a present meant repeating its name. Short of the moon and well before girls what I most wanted for…
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Clever Boy
Sometimes the obvious move isn’t the shrewdest one. Chess orthodoxy depends on thinking many moves ahead. It’s about visualizing grids…
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