On Not Writing
(Originally published in the NY Times) I started writing this essay five years ago, and then I stopped. That I was not able to finish
(Originally published in the NY Times) I started writing this essay five years ago, and then I stopped. That I was not able to finish
(Originally published in the NY Times) MY 30-year-long subscription to The New Yorker ran out a few months ago — pure absent-mindedness on my part
I got hacked. I say “I”; it was my email account, but it felt — feels still — deeply personal. It started on a Tuesday
(Originally published in the NY Times) WHEN the news broke recently that a team of Belgian scientists had “discovered” a new body part — a
(Originally published in the Virginia Quarterly Review))
I know New Yorkers who last took a subway in their twenties, thirty years ago, or who would rather be stuck in traffic any day than on an express train anyplace. Someday I, too, may know the luxury of a town car and driver or what it’s like to always take a taxi home. But until those hypothetical ships come in, all I can know is what I am now: a subway rider…
(Originally published in the NY Times) SOMEONE asked me the other day how I had gotten over the sudden death of someone I loved. What
(Originally published in the NY Times) Middle age arrives not with a birthday, with 48 candles on an angel food cake, but with a sudden
(Originally published in the NY Times)
ONE night last year I called my friend Oliver and told him to meet me on the roof of our apartment building. He lives three flights down from me. I had pulled together a simple dinner — roast chicken, good bread, olives, cherries, wine…
(Originally published in the NY Times) I went for a walk the other night. Someone said it was supposed to rain, but the skies looked
IF only I had read Plato. That’s what I thought when I saw my MRI: 28 images, impossible to deny, of a torn rotator cuff
“One of those rare authors who can tackle just about any subject in book form, and make you glad he did.” — San Francisco Chronicle