I see them in Milan, on Sundays, during holiday weekends or at vacation times. While Milanese enjoy Sunday dinner at Nonna’s, ski or sunbathe, these men, lost souls, carry groceries — usually ready-made stuff, maybe pasta, or a luxury treat such as pâté or chocolate. Often a bottle of whisky or grappa pokes from the bag. They are over 40 and well dressed. They might … Continue reading Simple Gifts

When Lothar R. Long, then aged 26, wrote this letter home to his mother, he was riding out a wave of physical, emotional and spiritual pressure whose only equal was earlier World War I battles. Long enlisted in the U.S. Marines Corps in Seattle in 1915, after bumming across the country and living in the YMCA while struggling to make it as journalist. He then … Continue reading War Music

Yes, yes, I know that I missed the deadline for reflections about my father. But as I reflect on the current “campus rape crisis” and wonder how to discuss it with my two college-age children, my father’s words keep coming back to me. Dad was an old-fashioned doctor whose patients loved him because he listened to them. He enjoyed absorbing long medical histories, which no … Continue reading A Father’s Sense

With story about a quirky, bee-keeping family getting by in a crumbling farmhouse in rural Tuscany, a maturing young girl (played by Alice’s sister Alba) and the arrival of a juvenile delinquent with communication problems, Alice Rohrwacher’s “Le Meraviglie,” which won the Grand Prix at this year’s film festival in Cannes, promises hopefulness. Instead, menace and suspense abound. Something feels bound to explode. The anger … Continue reading Le Meraviglie (The Wonders)

Seeing a David Cronenberg movie always comes with trepidation. The Canadian director’s ongoing investigation into whether emotional or physical violence is the most hurtful can tip easily into excess. The bare bones of “Maps to the Stars” hint at such excess early one, when scarred pyromaniac Agatha (Mia Wasikowska) returns to Los Angeles to reconnect with her estranged family. We don’t need details to suspect … Continue reading Maps to the Stars

About a month ago, I landed at the Delhi airport late at night. As I stepped out of the anonymous nowhere-land that is that city’s modern international airport, a thrilling wave of heat broke across me. It was the promise of new adventure and with it the memory of previous trips, or perhaps — since this was India — of previous lives. I love arriving … Continue reading Something in the Air

Frugality has become almost trendy since the financial crisis. Hipsters trade canning recipes. It wasn’t always this way. When I was growing up, frugality was anything but cool, particularly the orthodox variety of Extreme Frugality practiced in my home. Extreme Frugality peaked with The Incident of the Tomato in Paddington Station, which occurred in London in the mid-1970s. While visiting British friends in London, rush … Continue reading The Incident of the Tomato in Paddington Station

It is hard to choose which viscera-turning scenes in Claude Lanzmann’s nine-hour 1985 Holocaust documentary “Shoah” hit the hardest. A memorable one features two Polish crones pointing out the homes and shops of their town’s now-disappeared Jews. The scene’s power might suggest Lanzmann’s hard glare said all there was to say about Jew and Pole, Jew and Catholic and the poison of collaboration that was … Continue reading Ida

Dear Mr. Editor: I bet you don’t get much mail from dogs. But The Lady, that’s Madeleine Johnson, wasn’t getting anywhere on her column, which she says is my fault because I want attention and ask her to throw my ball when she’s trying to write. (Jeez, some excuse!) The topic was dogs in Milan, so I figured I’d handle it. She was slacking, and … Continue reading It’s My Ball

“On the internet,” went the New Yorker magazine cartoon showing a dog at the computer, “no one knows you’re a dog.” In Pakistan (and most Muslim countries) — as I discovered during a recent trip — no one knows you have cellulite. Or that you ate too much the night before. Or that you’re having a bad hair day. Or that you’re behind on waxing. Or that … Continue reading Rethinking the Wheel