August 16th, 2026 | Architecture and Design, General, Memory, Travel, United States
I learned something new about hotels. Apparently, these days, you need to inform the Front Desk if you expect housekeeping to tidy your room. Who knew? I definitely didn’t get the memo. Doing This And That Anticipating those covered bridges, I reconsidered living...
August 14th, 2026 | Architecture and Design, General, Travel, United States, visual arts
Winterset is about half an hour’s drive from the airport side of Des Moines, and there is a choice of routes. The most direct route is also the most lovely. Veterans Parkway and mostly Cummings Road glide through the rolling hills and fields of corn unencumbered with...
May 22nd, 2026 | Architecture and Design, General, History, Politics, Society at Large
“Trump announces planned DC site for sculpture garden / Raises questions on congressional approval needs.” Dan Diamond, Washington Post, 16 May 2026 Donald Trump didn’t so much win the election for President as he did—from his point of view—acquire the...
January 31st, 2026 | Architecture and Design, Europe, General, History, Travel
A slow stroll across Praça do Comércio, a breath of damp air off the River Tagus, a coffee and a croissant were prelude to the ascent. I climbed first to the Romanesque gloom of Sé and its jewel-box neighbor, Santo António da Sé, then descended to the Museu do...
January 26th, 2026 | Architecture and Design, Europe, General, History, Travel, visual arts
My research on Sintra was inadequate. I knew the train ran from Rossio and that my navigante occasional card would zap me there. I would find a stellar collection of historic sites and walking trails to explore. Buses run from the center of Sintra to distant palaces....
January 26th, 2026 | Architecture and Design, Europe, General, History, Indigenous Peoples, Politics, Travel, visual arts
I left the Gulbenkian Foundation astonished, moved, and thoroughly ashamed of what my country has become politically, morally, and culturally. The art I saw returned me to the politics that I had hoped, to some degree, to ignore for a few days. When I was there,...