Latest work
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Hoffa in Paraguay
Read more: Hoffa in ParaguayJimmy Hoffa, you ask? In Paraguay. My insomniac aunt once relied on talk radio to escort her through the unkind Brooklyn night. “Loneliness is an insidious disease,” she’d tell me, bemoaning life alone while delighting in rage of complaint aloneness offered. She was least lonely between midnight 5 a.m. thanks…
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No faint solace
Read more: No faint solaceThe author at his Columbia graduation. Iapplied to university in an era before the cost of a four-year degree approximated the purchase price of a Ferrari and the indebted student was an infected wart on American culture. Two months before I began my application process one Ivy League school announced…
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Gatté
Read more: GattéThe repressed sounds of your first language can come howling back. As you age you revert to your native language. The words you heard as a child carry over like the “one” in scribbled addition. My dreams have revived their accents. People say mouillé, arraché, crevé, flic, fric, gatté, morceau, roulé. Bateau and soutien…
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Toys became us
Read more: Toys became usSharing was out of the question… At the epochal 34th-Street Toy Conference of 1964 (regrettably under-reported at the time), Byrne and I — Byrne lived next door — made groundbreaking decisions. The Conference came about when we decided that other kids along the block were taking far too many liberties…
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Dream-killer
Read more: Dream-killerItaly’s view of the United States is still conditioned by Rome’s June 1944 liberation. Italian mainstream media is beginning to set aside Donald J. Trump. That’s not to say his erratic forays have vanished from front pages or news feeds. They haven’t. But nothing he says or does packs quite…
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The slippery buck
Read more: The slippery buckThe Truman desk sign came to epitomize a president who spoke his mind, often unadorned. Harry Truman had a sign on his Oval Office desk with a folksy bromide about accountability. “The buck stops here,” it read. In Boy Scout argot, that meant the man behind the desk bore ultimate…
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