Making connections
When I lost my iPhone in the back of a taxi a few weeks ago, I decided I wouldn’t replace it. My incessant checking of Gmail, Facebook and Twitter had bred a certain gadget co-dependency that I felt...
View ArticleThe Ikea conundrum
Do you consider yourself an Ikea Swedish meatballs or Ikea cinnamon buns kind of person? This is the question I pondered during a much-anticipated pilgrimage to the home furnishings behemoth in Red...
View ArticleThanksgiving in Turkey
I wrote a draft of this post nearly three years ago while living in Istanbul, when I felt unexpectedly nostalgic for an American holiday that had always meant little to me beyond the stuffing and pie....
View ArticleRemembering to forget
Didion with her daughter. From the LA Time's Jacket Copy In order to do the heavy lifting of reading a Joan Didion book, the brain – and the heart – must be prepared to carry the weight. This is...
View ArticleIn praise of prose and literary flings
In grad school, I took a course on Personal and Professional Style with the legendary movie critic Judith Crist. Sure, she’s an octagenarian, but still sharp as a tack. Judith didn’t make the trek up...
View ArticlePanem and circuses and Katniss
When I was little I wanted nothing more than to be She-Ra, princess of power. But that’s beside the point, sort of. This NYT article speaks to the ongoing obsession with The Hunger Games, specifically...
View ArticleIn memoriam: Ray Bradbury
Writers writing about writing is normally a little too snake eating its own tail for me, but when I found Ray Bradbury’s Zen in the Art of Writing: Essays on Creativity, it was a revelation. I found it...
View ArticleModel Slope Citizen
Part of living in the stroller mecca that is Park Slope is learning not taking oneself too seriously. I too was made to feel fashionably inferior when I took grocery bags full of old clothes to...
View ArticleDepicting an Invisible War
I wrote about the epidemic of rape in the military and the new documentary on the subject, The Invisible War, for the literary journal Warscapes. I also interviewed director Kirby Dick for New York...
View ArticleIn Sandy’s wake
Tonight I volunteered at the Park Slope Armory, which served people who had been displaced by the storm. I went because it seemed like the right thing to do. My duties consisted of fairly run of the...
View ArticleCrowdfunding the revolution
Me striking a ridiculous pose near the Galata Tower The revolution may not be televised or authorized, but it will be crowdfunded. When I first heard that the sit-in at Istanbul’s Gezi Park had...
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