Last night, as we waited for the first takeout we’ve allowed ourselves since March--we've been good, so good--I reflected on the righteous fury I feel when people break the rules of pandemic. A guy had his mask down below his nose, on the street, and I glared fiercely at him even though he pulled it … Continue reading After a night of bad dreams →

It’s hard to watch Top Gun and not be the guy who says things like “Aha! I see we are exorcising the specter of Vietnam!” but when the movie reveals that Tom Cruise’s dad is the ghost who haunts him and he was killed in 1965, in some ambiguously Vietnam war-adjacent event, and Tom Skerritt says he … Continue reading A propos of nothing, Top Gun →

Now that it’s fading into the blessed rear view, it’s worth thinking about the moment when “The Letter” became something you didn’t have to contextualize and didn’t have to explain. You could just say those words, mention “The Letter,” and people knew what you meant. The Letter had been delivered. I’m talking about twitter, of … Continue reading The feeling when a letter arrives at its destination →