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
I went to see “Sweeney Todd” last week and the high point was after the movie when I headed for the men’s room, passing a long line of women waiting to get into the women’s, and when I got inside the men’s, a tall woman in a long black coat emerged from a stall and […]
Read MoreThe cure for nostalgia is to read history, and the cure for holiday sentimentality is to listen for twenty-five minutes to an old friend telling you in a deep mournful voice how desolate his life feels to him right now with the air full of sugar and spice and musical bonhomie and him stranded on […]
Read MoreBETHLEHEM, Pa. — I woke up in New York this morning — a good thing, since I had gone to bed in New York last night — and dressed and packed and hustled off to the subway. On the sidewalk on 86th Street and Central Park West, a newspaper vendor stood with big stacks of […]
Read MoreIt was Christmas in the New York subways last week, musicians heading off to play Christmas gigs, and in the Times Square station a wild-haired old man out of a George Price cartoon pounded out “Winter Wonderland” on an electric organ, a rhythm attachment going whompeta-whompeta-whompeta, and two crazed battery-powered Santas dancing the boogaloo, nearby […]
Read MoreAnd so Mr. Scrooge kept Christmas in his heart and became a friend and benefactor to all and also got his hair and eyebrows trimmed. He made Bob Cratchit a partner, and an orthopedic surgeon fixed Tiny Tim’s gimpy leg so he could jump and run, and Scrooge & Marley became ScratchitInc and got out […]
Read MoreI got to teach Episcopal Sunday school last week, a rare privilege, and it was in a New York church so the kids had plenty to say. Teenagers, and if you expect them to sit in rapt silence as you tick off points of theology, you’re in the wrong place. They made plenty of noise, […]
Read MoreThe sudden rise of Mike Huckabee in the Republican jousts is a cool plot turn, one that makes you lean forward and turn up the sound. An amiable, well-spoken Southern conservative with a Gomer Pyle face challenging the teeth-baring Giuliani and the sleek Romney. You watch him field questions for a few minutes and the […]
Read MoreI sit in wonderment at the story of W. Lance Anderson, the president of NovaStar Financial in Kansas City, who while handing out subprime mortgages to any applicant wearing shoes and a shirt managed to sink the company’s stock from $40 in June to $1.72. This is a man who earned $1.7 million in salary […]
Read MoreA chill gray day under lowering skies and I left home without my cell phone and didn’t go back for it — thought, Naw, I’ll just use a pay phone if necessary — and felt awfully lost without it for the next 24 hours. The problem with pay phones is that you have to stand […]
Read MoreI was all set to be a raven for Halloween and don a long black cape and a beak and feathery wristlets, but I got stuck that afternoon at the neurologist’s who I’d gone to see about chronic headaches and I sat in his waiting room reading old Peoples until finally he put me through […]
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