Harpers Ferry
A few years ago, I was doing something mundane when the feeling hit me. I want to go to Harpers Ferry, I thought. Can’t explain why. I went through a John Brown period about 15 years ago (doesn’t every...
View ArticleHow travel writing is becoming something by and for the wealthy
On Saturday, I pretended to go to Portland, Oregon. There was a conference of travel editors going on, and because they were all using the Twitter tag #satwpdx, I was able to follow what the various...
View ArticleIs Sarah Palin the second coming of Andrew Jackson?
I saw Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson at the Public Theater. It grabbed me. Musicals that portray little-known aspects of American life strike a chord in me: Floyd Collins and Dreamgirls are two of my...
View ArticleHow ‘Blogger Brands’ win by undermining their colleagues
One of the changes that has come upon the writing business in the past few years is the rise of bloggers. Four years ago, if a writer wanted to work, he or she had to find someone to edit, publish, and...
View ArticleWhy they sobbed at ‘South Pacific’, and why we see only corn
PBS showed a live telecast of the Broadway revival of South Pacific tonight as the show prepares to close. I saw this production, which opened two years ago, for the first time last Tuesday, and I...
View ArticleThe good old days weren’t always good
My mother and I have an ongoing argument. “Life was simpler in the ’50s, Jay. It really was,” she says. I call baloney on that. Just think about what the ’50s offered Western culture: atomic bomb...
View Article‘Scottsboro Boys’ protest: It Ain’t No Minstrel Show
Today was the only time I have ever had to cross a protest line to see a musical. As I approached the Lyceum Theatre on 45th Street for today’s matinée of The Scottsboro Boys, I could see the shapes of...
View ArticleThe Disney Store Times Square opens. I’m without words
On Tuesday, the Disney Store makes a triumphant official grand opening in Times Square, shutting down the so-called “Crossroads of the World” with an appearance by a rodent that’s huge even by...
View ArticleThe corporation commands you to admit it’s 1:37 pm
Long before you lived here, America was a land of many towns. Our expansive “agrarian society” was barely a society at all, really, save for a loosely connected sense of similar place and purpose. And...
View ArticleThe Statue of Liberty is an Embarrassment
At least, it was when it began. It was in the Depression of 1873. A few years before, a bunch of greedy New York bankers artificially jacked up the price of gold, causing a financial panic and sending...
View ArticleInca Trail trek to Machu Picchu, Peru: What you need to know
My recent silence has everything to do with travel. I was on The Golden Trudge. I took a trip to Peru, where I visited Cusco and did the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu. When I tell people what I’ve been up...
View Article“Oklahoma!” is one of the dirtiest movie musicals of all time
You may think the musical Oklahoma! is a sweet little show about friendly farmers and cowmen, but I’ve got an arousing awakening for you. Oklahoma! is drenched in sexual innuendo, rape metaphor, and...
View ArticleWhat Will Become of the Home Where Walt Disney Lived When He Was a Loser?
Dreams do come true, and sometimes wilder than anyone could have imagined them, but sometimes they have to lay dormant—or get left behind, or rot, or even be given to someone else—for a long time...
View ArticleRudolph Valentino Died 90 Years Ago Today (So the Woman in Black Returned)
As they have done for 89 years since, Rudolph Valentino's fans gathered at 12:10 pm in the mausoleum at Hollywood Forever Cemetery to pay tribute—songs, praise, sermons about the eternal life of fame.
View ArticleAnthony Bourdain—My Lost Interview
One of the many destructive realities of working in a corporate-dominated economy, besides the political graft that’s dismantling democracy, is that corporations have no interest in memory. The one...
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