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Those Wacky Presidents Part Three
It’s interesting what stays with you when you read, our noble list of leaders lingering like after dinner mints. Let’s begin with the short of it… James Madison, being only 5’4 weighing less that 100...
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General Andrew Cuomo
New York has finally seen the day, without one virus fatality. After all we’ve been through, whoever would have thought. Governor Andrew Cuomo has done his work well, but as he’s already said, it’s not...
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The Big Bang
This piece concerns three men: John Kennedy, Bill Clinton and Eliot Spitzer, the latter, the former Governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo’s disgraced predecessor, who in 2008, stepped down due to his...
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Did You Know?
A U.S. President’s State of the Union Address was always read by a court clerk rather than the man himself, until Woodrow Wilson took the helm in 1913. Thomas Jefferson, who didn’t much care for...
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Poignant and True
While the late Anthony Bourdain was still the Executive Chef at Brasserie Les Halles, in midtown Manhattan, he’d see an older woman peer in the window most afternoons, but never come in. One day he...
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Best Story of the Week…August 20th
I’m at the Breast Torture Center for my annual mammogram. As I enter, a Latina in navy scrubs jumps in front of me and says, “Don’t go any further,” as she whips out a thermometer she shoves in my ear....
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Princess Diana Francis Spencer of Wales (1961-1997)
August 31st, 1997 92nd Street Y…New York City I was coming from a yoga class with my Israeli boyfriend, entering the member’s lounge, finding everyone huddled around the TV....
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Adamantine…An Unshakeable Word
This word came my way while reading a book on Theodore Roosevelt, who used it to describe his wife, Edith, derived from the adjective, adamant, meaning… refusing to be persuaded or to change one’s...
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Did You Know?…Noir Edition
During the editing of Ken Burns’s epic film, The Civil War, when they came to the part where Abraham Lincoln gets shot at Ford’s Theater, he and his colleagues sat there, not wanting to lay the track...
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Comfort Food
You’re expecting me to say Oreos or mashed potatoes. Not that I don’t love them, but a day or so ago, when I wasn’t feeling my particular best, went to my trusty book shelf and took down The Killer...
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Defending Jackie
I walk by 1040 Fifth, Jackie Kennedy’s longtime address (1964-1994), most mornings. Sometimes I gaze up to the 15th floor, other times, like today, stop to pay a brief homage. A girl was standing...
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Did You Know? Day of the Dead Edition…2020
Yes, I have an undeniably ghoulish streak. Consider it part of my charm, spawned from all the biographies and True crime books I’ve read. To quote the late, great Diana Vreeland, dying of a heart...
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Voting 6 Feet Apart
The drum roll has begun. Why does this presidential election feel more like the apocalypse than a Democracy? Hell if I know. Rather than noble Americans, we’re more like the Jets and Sharks in West...
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Best Story of the Week…November 5th
I’m walking up Madison after my run, looking at all the stores boarded up like an old abandoned movie set, fearing post election looting. There are two young construction workers sipping coffee by the...
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We Have A New President
“It’s easier to be a parent this morning. It’s easier to be a dad. It’s easier to tell your kids: ‘Character matters, it matters. Telling the truth matters. Being a good person matters.’ Van Jones...
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What I Didn’t Say
When a woman walked into my friend’s grocery store, without a mask, refusing to wear one when he politely asked her to, I didn’t say…hey bitch, who do you think you are? After my friend made the...
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The Way It Is Now
Today I was chased by a Corgi named Goldie who I’m madly in love with. She’s a little more than a puppy with fur that feels like silk, nuzzling you, like a low to the ground lover. Her owner, however,...
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Did You Know?
Eleanor Roosevelt was a hair under six feet tall, and the first, First Lady (1933-1945) to ever ride in an airplane. Wonder if she bumped her head. In 1921, President Warren Harding’s Airedale Terrier,...
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Did You Know?
When you come out of Union Station in Washington D.C., the first thing you see is the U.S. Capitol, beaming, across the sky. At Christmas, it’s even lit up. During the American Civil War (1861-1865),...
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Pardon Me
The idea of presidential pardons have always intrigued me, as if God loaned you his mantle….forgive forgive forgive, those who’ve trespassed against you, along with their country, in your name. I know...
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