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
A cabdriver picked me up outside the Waffle House in Little Rock last Sunday and said so sweetly, “I hope you enjoyed your breakfast” — elongating the “joy” slightly and slurring the k in “breakfast” — and I said yes, but honestly, I don’t really associate breakfast with enjoyment. It’s chow. It’s a standardized meal […]
Read MoreApril is a propulsive force in the north. Snow melts and the flotsam of spring appears, a child’s mitten in the mud, a soap bubble ring, the lilac bushes bud, a light haze of green shows in the tops of trees. The cry of the lawn mower is heard. Mating begins, females ruffling their tailfeathers, […]
Read MoreI flew to New York on the day spring arrived and all along 90th Street a lovely blue flower called Pushkinia blossomed which is named for the poet who, according to Russians, cannot be translated into English, but Tchaikovsky made a gorgeous opera of “Eugene Onegin,” which is some consolation, and then there is the […]
Read MoreFor some people, the urge to compete is very, very strong, such as the tall red-haired woman last Sunday morning at LaGuardia who cut in front of me at the boarding gate and did it so smoothly, expertly, no body contact, you have to assume she’s been acing people out all her life. She was […]
Read MoreAs our story continues, we find Senator McCain resting in his tent, plotting his fall campaign, as the Democrats continue the longest primary in human history, which has left the pundit club and the blogoswamp with nothing new to say whatsoever. You might as well write about your sock drawer. Hillary Clinton is a great […]
Read MoreHere we are, ignorant peasants in our mud huts at the base of the volcano of finance, begging the gods to spare us as the ground shakes beneath our feet and economists examine the entrails of pigeons and the shamans of the Federal Reserve fling handfuls of sacred powder into the steaming crater. We live […]
Read MoreThere was a small epiphany in church last week when we sang the recessional “O Sacred Head, Now Wounded,” a German chorale in which we basses must jump around more limberly than we may be used to. A tough part compared to “When the Roll Is Called up Yonder” and I stood in the rear […]
Read MoreIt is unbearably bleak as winter lingers in March and a cold wind blows and the people on the obituary page seem better looking than yourself and your prostate feels like a hockey puck and you walk around with your wallet and car keys looking for your wallet and car keys and you read an […]
Read MoreSenator McCain is 71 and most likely he will be the last Old Guy presidential candidate for all of you boomers. Goodbye, Great White Father in Washington. It happens as you age: Other people get younger. The pilots flying you to New York are teenagers. Your banker, your therapist, even your urologist is young. Still, […]
Read MoreDriving down Highway 52 last Monday morning at high speed so as not to be late for an MRI of my cranium, I passed a semi as it was barreling through a snowdrift and suddenly I was in a cloud of whiteness, much like the Rapture will be, but with zero visibility. I was talking […]
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