It’s commencement speech season. I have never been under the illusion that any educational institution would ever ask me to give America’s answer to the papal benediction. Yet over the…
Read more →
Articoli
Though I returned to the United States last summer after 30 years of living in Italy, daily events still have me comparing the two countries. You would think that three…
Read more →Irecently saw “The Opera House,” a delightful documentary by Susan Froemke about the Metropolitan Opera’s 1966 move from its beloved and ramshackle home in New York’s theater district to its…
Read more →
While watching the Winter Olympics when I should have been writing, I heard the same cliché over and over. Whether it was advertisers hawking cars or commentators telling competitors’…
When I first moved to Italy 30 years ago, its politics bewildered me. I couldn’t keep the innumerable parties and factions straight. News reports hindered more than they helped. Coverage…
Read more →In the United States, the winter and Christmas seasons officially begin the day after Thanksgiving, about a week earlier than I’d been used to when I lived in Milan. There,…
Read more →When I first moved to Rome in 1988, politician Giovanni De Michelis was among the most powerful men in Italy. He was Socialist Prime Minister Bettino Craxi’s right hand man.…
Read more →One of the various byproducts of the 2016 presidential campaign is a kind of news report that follows this pattern:
A member of the coastal media elite or a personality…
This morning I refurbished a pillow I bought at a church rummage sale. This left lint and thread on the floor, so I had to vacuum. After vacuuming downstairs, it…
Read more →Some days are perfect lake days. The breeze is up. The occasional whitecap dances across the ripples. Clean sheets flap in the wind and I smell the perfume of my…
Read more →