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The Art of Travel 12/31/2021
Reading time: 4 minutes
Wherever you go, there you are.
In other words: You bring you with you. For many situations, including travel, we should append a word to that sentence: You bring you with you—unfortunately.
In...
Postcard: Los Angeles 11/5/2021
Reading time: 2 minutes
Los Angeles: the great divider.
Many love America's second-largest city, many hate it—but everyone should visit at least once. And so I took my wife and son in October.
We made one rule: half of...
Afropean 8/6/2021
Reading time: 4 minutes
There is so much to love. And yet.
Coined by David Byrne of Talking Heads and Marie Daulne of Zap Mama, the term "Afropean," as we learn in Johny Pitts's book of the same name, is richly descr...
Roadrunner 7/22/2021
Reading time: 5 minutes
It's not a glory-driven whitewash.
Directly or indirectly, Morgan Neville's Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain, released last week, raises thorny issues about storytelling and the world-fa...
Red Dust 6/30/2021
Reading time: 4 minutes
The writing of certain types of intellectuals is elusive.
Scattered. Indefinite. A little odd.
Ma Jian is one such intellectual. Red Dust, a memoir of his travels through communist China in the...
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About
Some basics
A brief biographical sketch
Travel
Pardon the saccharine and the obvious, but travel is everything
France
France deserves its own section
Reading
The bullshit of daily life? I'd rather read.
Music
Let me take you back
Television
I watch a lot more television than movies
Soccer
The only sport that matters
Food
As a travel writer, I have to talk about food
Dumb stuff
You will not feel smarter after reading this
Minimalism
Trying to live simply
Other Interests
I've only driven a Ferrari once
Get off my lawn
A few brief rants