Last year, two days after Christmas and around three that afternoon, I passed out in the foyer of my home in Montclair, New Jersey. I hadn’t even had a drink, and I considered that fact, lying there on the hardwood floor, staring up, coming...
The poems I have chosen to memorize over the years answer to an odd mixture of social occasions and opportunities. When asked to perform a poem at nonacademic parties, I have found Lewis Carroll’s “Jabberwocky,” not among the poems Harold...
The spartan interior of a U.S. Air Force C-130 has uncomfortable web seating. Our gear is strapped to a pallet in the aft section, where clamshell doors yawn open until we accelerate down the runway. This airplane is all business—bare...
The woman next to me was astonishing in her stillness. She appeared perfectly composed, quiet, almost fixed in her concentration. She was softly pretty, her camel’s hair coat slung over the back of her chair and a pile of books in front of...
Visitors fortunate enough to have seen “The Moon Has No Home” were introduced to a striking new perspective on an art form that has enthralled interested viewers since the 1854 opening of Japan to the West. The show’s very title hints at...
It has long been recognized that getting an education is effective for bettering oneself and one’s chances in the world. But a degree and an education are not necessarily synonymous. Credentialing, not educating, has become the primary...
