I have a new piece up on Ars Longa, “The Leonardo Business.” I hope you’ll take a look, and let…
Ars Longa, a belated introduction, and some scattered thoughts on publishing
When I first started writing, I wrote out of sheer desire. I had all kinds of reasons for why the…
Notes on Thanksgivings Past
I wrote this back in September, when it was still almost 80 degrees out, and I had no reason to…
Cooking By the Book: 1. Craft
1. At some point in college, I became obsessed with cookbooks. This obsession with cookbooks coincided with two things—first, I…
Cooking by the Book: Prologue – Cooking Lessons
I came up with the Cooking By the Book series years ago (really, almost half a lifetime ago), when food…
Seacoasts of Dreams
One white-hot July morning, I took the train from Bologna to Ravenna. The train dropped me off at the foot…
At South Ferry
On the twentieth anniversary of 9/11, under the same bright blue, nearly cloudless skies, I walked through lower Manhattan to…
Yellow Woman, 1
This piece first appeared in the JHI Blog’s June Reading Recommendations roundup. The first part of the text is more…
Bookshelf: The Dreamt Land
2020, overall, was not conducive to serious reading. I spent much of it glued to my glowing screen, staring gape-eyed…
Asides: (Not) a Living Wage
Earlier this June, Artnet News released the results of a survey of “more than 300 art dealers about the economics…
it might be art 