We passengers walk across decks and down hallways as though lost in the embrace of…
The Eternal City 2: Turisti Stare Attenti
It’s not quite caveat emptor but the idea is similar. Tourism is primarily—the primary?—source of income in Rome. Spontaneity, a commendable trait, is likely to exacerbate that leak in your wallet. Rome seems just as problematic as when “Bear Leaders,” those...
The Eternal City 1: Ice Cream and Artichokes
Gelato and carciofi. These are the reasons to go to Rome. On day one, having failed to gain entrance to the Casino dell’Aurore (see a later post) we found ourselves descending from the Quirinale Palace toward the Trevi Fountain. This is familiar territory, the home...
Elegy
When I was about twelve or thirteen, I read Sterling North’s Rascal, a memoir of a year during World War One and the raising of a baby raccoon. North was much the youngest of four siblings; his sister Theodora was the practical member of the family and the one who...
Back in the Garden
The ground is soggy, the sun is bright and the wind whips up now and then. Although there are patches of snow and ice here and there, there is no sense of winter, only the certainty of spring. The garden is a wreck. There is so much dead foliage, not just the detritus...Sea Cloud 5: The Islands Cruised
This cruise on the Sea Cloud–History and Gardens of the Caribbean–coordinated by Academic Arrangements Abroad, will be almost certainly a once in a lifetime thing. First of all, there’s the cost. We are never likely to have that kind of disposable...
Matthew Adelberg: Lineage
Matthew Adelberg turned twenty-one a few days past; when I look at the artist who once was a student in my art history classroom, I see something closer to the boy at his bar mitzvah. This exhibition at the Dadian Gallery at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington...Sea Cloud 4: Life of Lime
Even here in “water, water everywhere.,” the day’s rhythm is like that of any exploration we have made. I wake, I rise and shower, I find coffee or tea and the time to organize my thoughts while my Dear One makes up for often fitful sleep. The swells are large;...
Sea Cloud 3: Royal Treatment
To experience this kind of luxury is to feel also the needling of guilt. Our cabin is made immaculate by our personal gremlin, the steward Erik, and someone hangs in a little linen bag several pages of articles from the New York Times (including the crossword puzzle)...