Another shooting and another and another. Our gun culture is ruining us. How many lives lost? How many more lives irrevocably harmed? Shootings have become so commonplace they are engrained in our psyche. Every time we go to the store, or to work, or school, or to gather to worship, whenever we go anywhere, the possibility of getting shot is real. Statistically unlikely, but real. I used a...
I need to come up with one more word to be Genius level: overell, pevelon, renovel, lonovore? They should be words, but I know better. I’ve been working on the Spelling Bee in The New York Times Magazine since I picked up the paper from my driveway Sunday morning. I like games with simple rules: words at least five letters long that must include the middle letter. One point each word. Use all 7...
I’d been warned to expect side effects from my second COVID-19 vaccine. Everyone I knew who’d gotten the second shot had felt punky with some combination of joint pain, low energy, headaches, fever, and nausea. I braced myself. Vaccine at noon on a Thursday. By bedtime I was congratulating myself for feeling great all day. Next morning: all good in the kingdom. I even agreed to meet a friend and...
(I published this post last year on my Dad’s birthday. I might run it every year.) That’s my dad and I riding bikes past the old casino in Delaware Park, Buffalo, New York, 1973. It was late March, the piles of snow melting in the background. I’m 14 years old, a high school freshman. My father is 46, married, the father of five, a rising marketing executive at a pharmaceutical...
Every day is national something awareness day and I just found out today is Siblings Day. I’d have felt horrible if I hadn’t raised a glass (you know what I like) in love and gratitude. How lucky I am to have this crew on my side. Five of us separated by 6.5 years. What kind of insanity had hold of my parents? These bigger families, it’s a lot of lives to keep track of when...
Going through old files I found this story the kids and I wrote together years ago. I’ve recently encouraged parents to read to their young children, to tell each other stories, to use their imaginations. We sometimes worked on stories together, each contributing characters and plot lines. We put together a little collection of creepy tales. Here is one of our favorites, reprinted in its...
I don’t watch much television, but last night I turned on the set. Between checking out Aaron Rodgers hosting Jeopardy and waiting for the NCAA Men’s Basketball Final, I tuned into the Ken Burns documentary, “Hemingway,” a 3-part series that is airing on PBS. I thought I’d watch for a few minutes and ended up staying for two mesmerizing hours, missing a good chunk of the basketball game. The...
Wendall Berry
Georgia’s corporate giants have found themselves in turbulent waters tacking against the winds and political pressure surrounding Georgia’s freshly-minted law, “Election Integrity Act of 2021.” Prior to the law being passed by the state’s Republican-controlled legislature and signed by Republican Governor Brian Kemp, most big corporations didn’t have much to say. Two household-name...
A question I’ve gotten a lot about my novels is a variation on “What parts are true?” This question irked me. I would retort with snappy answers: “None of it’s true, that’s why it’s called fiction.” Or: “It’s all true! I’m incapable of imagination.” Or: “Whatever part you believe is true.” I was bothered because asking about what’s true in a novel takes attention away from the work and places it...
The New York Times article, “Start Retraining for Social Interactions,” got off to a good start. The writer caught my attention early with “the prospect of readjusting to in-person social engagements may be a daunting one. For many, it provokes a sense of profound discomfort, apprehension or ambivalence.” I might have a touch of that. I’m accustomed to being at home, just Harriet and me, or...
If you want to point out the mistakes I’ve made as a parent, get in line, because there are a lot of people ahead of you. How many times did I say the stupid thing, enact the wrong rules, make the wrong decision? The ledger is long. But one thing Harriet and I got right was passing down to our kids a love—a need—of reading. They’re both in college now (something that a passion for reading makes a...
One thing I’ve missed during the pandemic is going into other people’s houses and examining their bookshelves. If I enter someone’s house and I don’t see any bookshelves or if the only bookshelves I see are decorated with objects d’art and not lined with books, I get tense, as if I were entering a dangerous dark alley. I begin to question just who is this stranger whose house I’ve entered...
How long a shadow the Big Lie casts conceived and perpetuated by the Fuhrer and his minions Keep it simple, keep it outrageous, keep it repeating Blame everything on the Jews, they did And the Big Lie surfaces again from another would-be Fuhrer A stolen election! People will believe People will believe a simple, outrageous repetition If we’re so susceptible to believing why not turn the Big Lie...
If I hadn’t ended up a writer, I could have been a weatherman. Better yet a weatherperson. Although the profession never did make the list of my brilliant career. What appeals to me is the careful blending of weather data, facts, and analysis with the creative presentation of the weather report. What to leave in and out. How to make the dull day interesting, the horrific day not so apocalyptic...
