Essays
1090 results
Page 88
Winter getaway: Peru
Land of magnificent extremes
Peru, I discovered, is a place where Conquistador palaces coexist with thatched-roof huts, Catholic churches are built over Incan temples, and a physician practices alongside a half-naked tribal shaman. And in what other airport terminal can you purchase shots of oxygen alongside cell phones?
Essays
7 minute read
Mark McGwire's steroid confession
The last white baseball hero comes (semi) clean
The disgraced ex-slugger Mark McGwire has confessed to taking steroids but still expects us to believe that a broken-down player in his 30s could achieve naturally not only what he couldn't in his 20s, but things no player had ever achieved before him. And he's hardly alone in his delusions.
Essays
6 minute read
'The Truth About Love' (poem)
The Truth About Love
The thing about love is, it stays with you. After all, it's got nowhere else to go. Who says poets don't possess the secrets of the cosmos?
Essays
1 minute read
Airport security nightmare
Fear of flying (or landing): Your Customs Service in peace and war
After a 12-hour flight from Brazil, my husband was exhausted. Next thing he knew, he was in a windowless room, being told, “Do not look down, do not speak or we will take you down.”
Essays
3 minute read
The poet who drowned in a quandary
Robert Frost, call your office: Three light poems for a new decade
“I Would Have Liked You More If You Were Prettier” makes the short list of Lynn Hoffman's Poems I'll Probably Never Write. Also, Hoffman answers the cosmic question: Why are some poets admired and I'm not?
Essays
5 minute read
You've got mail, 1961 (Memoir)
Practical education, 1961: My brief career as a mailman
As a substitute summer mailman, I relished the fresh air and the freedom to set my own pace. I also learned how to game my employer, the federal government.
Patti Smith's punk purity
Patti Smith: The purity of a punk godmother
The Public TV documentary, Patti Smith: Dream of Life, reveals the punk icon as above all a woman of consummate purity. There's not a dram of pretense or drama in this woman; it's as if she lives each moment for the sake of exploration.
Essays
5 minute read
Peggy Amsterdam's halo effect
The fiber of Peggy Amsterdam's being
When Peggy asked politicians and public officials, “What were you thinking?!” even the thoughtless were humbled. With every fiber of her being, she understood and taught and lived a basic truth: The arts are the world's one consistent pathway to insight, humanity and yes, survival.
Essays
3 minute read
An agnostic reconsiders Jesus
Yes, Danny, there was a Jesus
How does an agnostic ex-Catholic with a Lutheran German wife explain Western civilization to his three-year-old son? In my case, it helps to understand the events of the Bible, whether or not you believe them.
Essays
3 minute read
A GI Christmas carol (memoir)
Brief encounter in Seoul: A GI Christmas Carol
I was a lonely GI in Seoul on Christmas Day. Then I met a beautiful woman who introduced me to beautiful music. That's all it took.
Essays
10 minute read