They’re driving on South Dora, arrive at the stop sign at Observatory Avenue and watch a man tug at his belt buckle, drop his trousers and squat a few inches above the sidewalk. The driver,…
Posts published in “Essays”
When I walked into the day room of the Bay Area board and care facility where my friend Sally lives, a pall of gloom had descended on the place as bored-looking residents sat in front…
Accessibility of knowledge was crucial to the Enlightenment. That ethos was embodied in the celebrated Encyclopédie of Diderot and D’Alembert, the first of its seventeen volumes appearing in 1751, the year after Johann Sebastian Bach’s…
I was in Nuremberg during the war crimes trials which followed WWII. My father, Brig. General Telford Taylor, was Chief Prosecutor during the second, American phase. The French, Russian and British staffs had gone home…
‘The Third Life of Grange Copeland.’ by Alice Walker, 1970 ‘Gathering Blossoms Under Fire: The Journals of Alice Walker’ Edited By Valerie Boyd, 2022 ‘The Candy House’ By Jennifer Egan, 2022 * * * Many…
Sometimes a rural dweller gets a longing for cultural input. Visiting museums, orchestral musical performances, and art openings can all fill the bill. Something like a three day film festival really raises the bar. At…
How often does it happen that you write what you want on a piece of paper, tack it up on a notice board outside a grocery store, and get a telephone call a day or…
The Blue Zones Project is based on the idea that by studying communities in the world that have a disproportionately high percentage of people living over the age of 100, common themes might be identified…
Norma Barnacle burned most of the letters she received in 1909 from her lover who signed his name, “Jim.” But she didn’t destroy all of them. Indeed, they have survived all these years. In one…