Columns
From the New York Times, Time magazine, and the complete Chicago Tribune syndicated columns
From the New York Times, Time magazine, and the complete Chicago Tribune syndicated columns
Spring crept in Saturday on its little cat feet, the temp hit 50 where I was, time to open the windows and let in the hopeful breeze and blow away the stale air of regret and dismay, time to make time to go out and see the world, which is out there, pleading to be seen.
Baseball season opens March 25, the Yankees in San Francisco, and I hope I can see four or five games this year, and I’d love to make it to Wrigley Field in Chicago and Fenway in Boston, plus Yankee Stadium in the Bronx. I never made it to the old one, the House That Ruth Built, but the new one is a classic too.
Read MoreLife is good, spring is on the way, and we must keep reminding ourselves of this since it isn’t reported in the newspapers, just as they don’t bother to point out that Canada is to the north and a brisk walk is good for you and you shouldn’t stick a fork into the toaster to pry loose a slice that’s stuck. You’re supposed to know this.
Yes, there is sadness and confusion. Yes, a person can descend into the insanity of passwords and PIN numbers that makes you want to go back to the paper tablet and No. 2 pencil. Yes, there is the misery of instruction manuals written by technical whizzes for other whizzes but for the rest of us may as well be in Urdu.
Read MoreThere’s an awkward pause that occurs when uninvited people come to visit you for no good reason, when everything has been said that anyone can think of, but nobody gets up to leave — it feels like the Valley of the Shadow of Death — so farewell sounds need to be made such as “Okay then” and “Yes, sir” and “Very good” — and we have now reached this point with the Trump era. Everything has been said twice: Democrats are traitors, judges are fools, the country was in ruins and now is No. 1 again, and the Incumbent is the greatest president in our history. Time for the guests to go home.
That was the beauty of the blizzard that transformed New York City. It was real and it had nothing to do with him and for two whole days he disappeared from our collective consciousness. Airports closed, sanitation workers put in 12-hour days. Twenty inches fell in Central Park Sunday, so Monday was called a holiday, and the Park was packed with celebrants, sliding, skiing, hiking, dog-walking, and the snow was perfect snowman snow and impressive ten-foot ones appeared here and there, and snowballs were thrown though in a big city you need to think before tossing. But nobody said it was caused by Chinese satellites, or that it made it even more necessary to take Greenland. It was just a great blizzard that changed how everyone went about their business. We were all in it together. All of the various pronouns became one: We. Us. Ours. He/him/his didn’t matter much. Our brief experiment with monarchy was over.
Read MoreI am fond of facts, even ones I don’t fully comprehend, such as the fact that curling stones are made from a heavy form of granite from magma expelled by an ancient volcano on an uninhabited island off the coast of Scotland, this stone and this stone alone is what curlers slide down the ice as the sweepers run alongside sweeping. I read this in the Fake News but it has the ring of truth and if you can prove otherwise, I will buy you all the haggis your heart desires.
The mind is flighty, easily distracted and this is why, as I scroll down the Fake News from the New York Times on my cellphone, every few inches there’s an ad for American Express to remind me that they’re not about abstract expressionism or overnight mail or nonstop bus service but they do credit cards, okay? Get that?
Read MoreI sort of miss having Greenland in the news every day, a land I’ve sometimes wanted to visit when I get sick of summer. Face it, nature can get tedious at a certain point and Greenland has less greenery than any other land I can think of. I’m from Minnesota, which has a long winter so when spring rolls around people expect you to be all giddy and excited and do things, have picnics, play softball, go camping. I went camping when I was in Scouts. I did it. It’s done.
Hiking sounds nice, walking, conversing, but inevitably the persons who go hiking with me know a great deal about trees and plants and enjoy expounding and explaining about herbaceousness and deciduosity and I’m sorry but plant life is immobile and lacks communication skills and isn’t that interesting.
Read MoreI had a dramatic dream last week, a dream about a man in a white suit twisting my damaged left arm, the one I’m still carrying in a sling after breaking the shoulder, and in the dream he was causing excruciating pain as I cried out in agony and he sneered at me, “How’s that? Does that hurt? Do you want more?” and in the background I heard cruel childish laughter, taunting, insulting, calling me a Baby, urging the tormentor on.
It was a primal dream about ordinary cruelty. I was tormented by other children, so were you. It’s part of childhood. And then my daughter Maia came into the dream and he vanished. I’d been looking at pictures of her that day on my laptop, joyful pictures, grinning, eyes alight, with her beloved aunts and nannies, Jenny her mom, her grandmothers, me.
Read MoreHave I told you about my recent shoulder replacement surgery? Or in my concern about declining math scores did I forget to mention it?
I busted the shoulder in a fall: the force of gravity — you think you’ve got it figured out and you’re distracted by something and suddenly it’s the farce of gravity, you become a physics experiment.
Read MoreI grew up in the Fifties, during the administration of Dwight Eisenhower, a man admired by my father and uncles, a Kansan, a victorious general, and it’s hard to imagine Eisenhower holding up funding for a crucial rail tunnel under the Hudson unless Penn Station be renamed for him. Or sending his son-in-law on diplomatic missions to Middle East sovereignties in which he is deeply invested. Or masked men in military gear conducting dragnets in American cities, rounding up whomever they wish without warrants. This is a considerable change from then until now and it’s not about electronics. It’s about e-t-h-i-c-s.
But the Current Guy says, “Nobody cares about that.” So one can imagine him deciding the November elections are unreliable and postponing them until 2028 or sometime when his party can be certain of the outcome. Look yourself in the mirror and tell yourself that he won’t and see if you believe it.
Read MoreOnce, years ago, a person awoke and came in the kitchen where perhaps one person was eager to engage with you, your spouse, better half, paramour, soulmate, main squeeze. Words were exchanged. A newspaper lay on the table and you read the headline, Talks Resume in Effort to Reach Settlement. Eventually, offspring would appear, the mood would darken, conflicts arise and then subside. The phone hung on the wall and it did not ring. Social interactions developed within familiar confines.
This has now changed, thanks to electronics. The laptop contains numerous newspapers, enough to engage you until noon, and also search engines to serve your random curiosity so you can read about Stephen Miller and Joseph Goebbels and The House of Seven Gables and you look up and it’s 2 p.m. and you’ve missed your Zoom meeting and you can’t remember what you’ve been reading for five hours.
Read MoreI am enjoying being 83 more than I expected to and I’m not sure why. Happiness with no discernible cause. Maybe it’s caused by sobriety, maybe it’s a signal of dementia, maybe it’s the realization that, despite my wayward ways, God loves me and I am finally profoundly grateful.
When I was a kid and feeling oppressed, misunderstood, cheated of life’s pleasures, uninvited to cool kids’ parties, my mother liked to say to me, “What’s the matter? Did the dog pee on your cinnamon toast?” And it always made me happy. Still does.
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