April 13th, 2018 | General, literature and poetry, visual arts
At the time I was about halfway through this wonderful book, my Dear One and I were watching an episode of Homeland, a political thriller starring Mandy Patinkin and Clare Danes. I’ll admit it—it’s the seventh season and we’re into it. At that particular moment (the...
April 9th, 2018 | Family, Friends, Gardens and Gardening, General, literature and poetry, Memory, Time Passes
I read Sy Montgomery’s Soul of an Octopus (2016) and it permanently decreased my options on the sushi menu. The Good Good Pig: The Extraordinary Life of Christopher Hogwood (Ballantine/Random House, 2006) may not permanently put me off pork, but it will make me...
April 7th, 2018 | Cooking, Kitchen and Table, General, Holidays, Shopping
What is it with making ordinary treats seasonal? I already went cuckoo when I nearly couldn’t find peppermint stick ice cream for my Christmas dinner menu—and I don’t see why the flavor should be available only from late November to late December. When I was a child...
April 2nd, 2018 | Gardens and Gardening, General, the world and Mother Nature
My maternal great-grandfather, Elwyn Greeley Preston Sr., established for his family a summer retreat on Squam Lake in Holderness, New Hampshire. He acquired several contiguous parcels of land on Mooney Point and filled in a number of marshy areas to create firm...
April 2nd, 2018 | Europe, Family, General, literature and poetry, Travel
I normally read Sedaris in places like New Yorker magazine; my husband buys the published collections for me at Christmas or on my birthday, and each piece is a cupcake I can take to bed and not leave crumbs. If I spent more time in the car, maybe I’d listen...
March 3rd, 2018 | Friends, General, literature and poetry, Matters of the Spirit, visual arts, Women
It’s been a big year for the sculptor Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) in museums. Sadly, I missed Séraphin Soudbinine: From Rodin’s Assistant to Ceramic Artist and Klimt & Rodin: An Artistic Encounter, both of which were at the Legion of Honor in San Francisco....
February 26th, 2018 | Education, General, literature and poetry
May I have a moment to whinge before I applaud? This book is about good writing and the writer demonstrates two bad habits that happen to drive me mad. Blatt splits infinitives and he seems not to grasp the difference between “fewer” and “less.” Now I know that it is...
February 22nd, 2018 | General, Politics, Popular Culture, Society at Large
For a book that has a signal presence within the critique of the Donald Trump presidency, Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House by Michael Wolff (Henry Holt and Company, 2018) is an abysmal piece of writing. I watched a few televised interviews and found the...
February 22nd, 2018 | General, Health, Politics, Society at Large
On Valentine’s Day 2018, Nikolas Cruz packed up the AR-15 type rifle he bought just after his eighteenth birthday, and countless rounds of ammunition loaded into large capacity magazines, into a carrying case. He called an Uber and headed over to Marjorie Stoneman...
February 15th, 2018 | Architecture and Design, Family, General, Politics, visual arts, Women
On February 12, 2018, the portraits of the 44th President and First Lady of the United States were unveiled. How do I like them? Let me, as it were, count the ways. The paintings are modern. The artists who made them (Kehinde Wiley, b. 1977, and Amy Sherald, b. 1973)...
