The Last Chord of "Cold War"
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Writing about the things that shape how I see the world.
Reading "A Winter Book" in Summer
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Tove Jansson’s stories are like the flotsam and jetsam washed up on the beach. Put stones on the ones that interest you, to claim them as yours.
Read MoreNot Good—But Getting Better
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What a young Latvian YouTuber taught me about the value of knowing yourself.
Read MoreLouise Hay: The First and Last Voice I Hear
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I don't think there's another person who has influenced the way I think more than Louise Hay. Affirmations are the heart of her work—swapping out negative thoughts for positive ones. "What we believe about ourselves and about life becomes true for us," Louise writes. Even if we think we hate ourselves, she points out, "it's only a thought, and a thought can be changed."
Read MoreMarrying Mr. Bonehead
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In Yasujirō Ozu's film The Flavor of Green Tea over Rice, a dissatisfied wife discovers how much she's been missing by focusing on what's wrong with her husband.
Read MoreA Trip Around the World with Krzysztof Kieślowski
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Watching the films in the Three Colors trilogy one after another on the big screen, I noticed things I’d never seen before.
Read MoreOne Stop Earlier
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A New York Times prompt led me back to a doctor whose offhand advice still shapes how I move through the city.
Read MoreFrida Mania
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When an artist is an icon, can you still have a personal connection to the work?
Read MoreTone on Tone: A Monochromatic Picture of Midlife in "Another Woman"
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Some people have closed the book on Woody Allen. I understand that impulse. But his movies shaped who I am—and rewatching Another Woman reminded me how much.
Read MoreObject Lessons
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A hand-embroidered table runner becomes a meditation on chosen family in The New York Times feature “The Objects We Keep for Love.”
Read MoreReading "The Summer Book" in Winter
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A small world—one island, one season, a handful of characters—brings large questions into focus.
Read MoreMoral Dilemmas: On Writing to "The New York Times" Ethicist
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Ethics and integrity can feel disturbingly out of fashion. What drew me to The New York Times’ “Ethicist” column—and prompted me to write—was its willingness to linger over moral questions without easy answers.
Read MoreA Little Something Extra
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Over the holidays, I read Plain and Simple, a book by the late Sue Bender, an artist and psychologist who became obsessed with Amish quilts and dolls, and found a way to live among their makers. Their reality sometimes unsettled her—but it only deepened her appreciation.
Read More"Mouchette": The Privilege of the Wretched
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Mouchette, a French peasant girl whose name means “little fly,” is a pest to the people around her. Scrunched up and defensive, she clomps through a rough world where words have little value—even the ones that might save her life.
Read MoreSelena Gomez Is Giving Éponine Energy
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As a closeted teenager, I found expression for how I felt in Éponine’s unrequited love song “On My Own.” Decades later, I still hear that ache in the voices of Linda Ronstadt and Selena Gomez—singers with more than a little in common.
Read MoreHere Comes "The Sun"
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After The Sun printed my letter about an essay that moved me, I saw how the magazine keeps readers and writers in conversation about the human spirit.
Read MoreNaming What Matters: Nan Goldin, Peter Hujar, and Power of the Particular
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Their cameras didn’t just capture people—they revealed relationships.
Read MoreMy Letter to "The New Yorker" on Green-Wood Cemetery
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This week, The New Yorker published my letter to the editor about Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery, a place I walk through weekly, finding new things to discover each time.
Read MoreFootnotes from a Gay Sensibility
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Hairy legs, bare feet, and a sharp sense of humor: what Interview's sandal feature reveals about a gay sensibility.
Read MoreHauser at Radio City Music Hall: I Came for My Partner, I Stayed for the Feeling
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