“American comedian George Carlin first spoke about seven words that are taboo on television in 1972 with his monologue, ‘Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television.’ The words for which Carlin became…

“Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) composed a constellation of riddle poems that we are meant to solve, but one of them was freighted with such ecstasy that the poet just could not help herself: she…

“Mark Addison Kershaw, like the greatest of cartoonists (and there should be a better collective noun than cartoonists, which does not nearly suffice) stands at a certain remove from the quotidian. Vis-à-vis the…

“Dearest Friends and Rellies, sorry it’s been so long since you last heard from me, but since the lockdown ended on May 14, exactly a month ago as I write this, I’ve had…

“Truly, my mother was a hard, hard act to follow. Her black chignon, her enormous hats, her flawless, Charles-of-the-Ritz make-up, her back-seamed stockings, their seams razor-straight, her high, high-heeled pumps, her three (never…

“Like an ancient map, its spirit roads in the visible realm can, effectively, never be found. A dish, about the size to fill two slightly cupped hands. Narrow, vaguely circular, disappearing from not…

“You have likely heard this expression: We learn from our mistakes. The process of science assures that we—at least some of us—will continue along an educational path, up to and until we are…

“Didi found me a small pension in Calenzana, a nearby village notorious for being a center of the Union Corse and the white slave trade. ‘How can you go there on your own,’…

“Today, after many classes where I was advised to think of each dance as a ‘three-minute love affair,’ and after scores of hours practicing in a studio, not to mention many, many nights…

“Growing up on the island of Mykonos in the 1960s, my brother and I were the only blond and blue-eyed children in sight. In fact, we were among the very first foreigners to…