One Last Look
President Barack Obama takes one last look at the crowd at his second inauguration.
Lifestyle
Food and Drink. Music. Photography. Sports. Shopping. Technology. Everything that doesn’t fit in the travel category will probably fit in this one.
Roger Ebert on Travel, Writing, and Being Lonely
In the wake of the passing of film critic Roger Ebert, I am, like many of Ebert’s admirers, revisiting some of his writings. I was particularly struck by this essay, All By Ourselves Alone, in which he discusses his travel rituals in cities like Venice and London. He opens the piece at a familiar Venetian cafe:…
Before…Everything
Before Midnight , the highly anticipated third film in Richard Linklater’s “Before” series, comes out this week. Will I go see it the night it comes out? Probably not. But that’s not because I don’t want to see it. Rather, it’s because I am at about the same stage of life as Celine and Jesse…
Little Libraries
Does your community have a Little Free Library yet? These have been sprouting up around my county lately and I am really impressed with the concept. Take a book, add a book. It feels like finding lost treasure. The first LFL I saw was focused on children’s books, which was excellent because I was at…
Happy New Year (1974)
New Year’s resolution: Be more excited about the coming year than people in 1974 were.
‘It Is Solved By Walking’
“Solvitur ambulando.” –St. Augustine I used to drive by a church that had this St. Augustine quote on its entrance sign. “It is solved by walking.” The church sat along a very busy road, so I only ever saw the sign as I was sitting in traffic. What a way to stick it to us who…
Dog Day Documentary
http://youtu.be/Jffac-2dJ44 Dog Day Afternoon is one of the coolest, rawest films I’ve ever seen. In it, Al Pacino gives such a heartfelt performance as John Wojtowicz, the man who masterminded – and botched – the robbery of a Brooklyn bank in August 1972. Now there’s a documentary about the life of Wojtowicz called “The Dog” and…
Zadie Smith on Finding Your Beach
When you sit down to write on a cool and bright Sunday morning, you hope that you will find an essay like this one from Zadie Smith, which appears in the upcoming issue of the New York Review of Books.
You Can Get More Done Being Anonymous…
“You can get more done being anonymous. I know how people can get famous, but they have to want to do that … It has to tickle the G-spot of their minds, because being anonymous is so much more powerful. You can get so much more done if you’re not worried about fame and fortune….
