HIGH HOLIDAYS
THE CESTA DE NAVIDAD, Christmas Basket, is a traditional Spanish gift consisting of wine, liquor, sweets, other treats, and cured ham. The Guardian, December 21, 2021, offers a variation of … Continue reading
TRAVELS WITH ZENOBIA PART 2
TWO AMERICAN WOMEN, foot-loose after World War I adventures, decide to buy a Ford Model T in Paris and drive it to Albania. Their journal was transformed into the book … Continue reading
TRAVELS WITH ZENOBIA PART 1
WHENEVER I CONSIDER giving a book away, I leaf through it to recall why I bought it in the first place. And then I wonder if I really want to … Continue reading
夫を連れて行って, ください
A JAPANESE COMEDIENNE might use the line above, Google Translate’s rendering of “Take my husband, please.” But until relatively recently she wouldn’t be performing rakugo, the classical form of Japanese … Continue reading
MOUNT RUSHMORE TIDBITS
DAUGHTER SUZ AND I recently enjoyed Alfred Hitchcock’s famed North by Northwest, everything from this director’s cameo missing a bus in its opening moments, to the oft-cited line “We laugh … Continue reading
LA MARQUISE MOTORS ON
THE 1884 DE DION, BOUTON ET TRÉPARDOUX is “the oldest running car in the world,” as described by Gooding & Company at its Pebble Beach Auction, August 19, 2007. The … Continue reading
AMERICANS IN JAPAN—1965
JUST AS THE 1853–1854 Perry Expedition to Japan led to the Meiji Era’s assimilation of Western ways, the 1964 Summer Olympics, the first Olympiad held in Asia, enhanced Tokyo’s standing … Continue reading
EDITOR, LETTERS TO THE
THIS ALL STARTED with the London Review of Books, September 23, 2021. It contained Anthony Grafton’s “Fake It Till You Make It,” a review of Dennis Duncan’s aptly named Index, … Continue reading
MEDICAL TIDBITS
THE COVID PANDEMIC has made me aware of SIR analyses modeling Susceptibility, Infection, and Recovery; of R0, R-naught describing Covid’s average rate of transmission; and of other medical complexities. Yet … Continue reading
ARMCHAIR TRAVEL? NO, ROCKING CHAIR
I’VE HAD GOOD FUN with armchair travel by virtue of my Baedekers and other guidebooks. The fact that most of them were published before the Great War only enhances their … Continue reading
Simanaitis Says 