Wednesday 13th
But of Kors! Well, what can we say: After all the post–Sept. 11 promises to be “subdued” and “respectful,” Fashion Week has gone ahead and swallowed the city like a great big billowing peasant blouse …. Designers Michael Kors ( Ralph Lauren crossed with Isaac Mizrahi ), Oscar de la Renta (rich, ruffles Read More
My friend, my
reader. Slippery streets. Gray skies, mufflers pulled tight, boots stained by
salt and mud. Despite the solstice, darkness still falls in the early
afternoon, shrouding the lampposts, the fire hydrants, the no-parking signs. On
Broadway the fluorescent tubes in the corner deli are dead-eyed white, like
they are in a hospital corridor, Read More
The world has changed since Sept. 11-or so the
commentators keep telling us. Everything is altered, nothing is the same as
before, all is irretrievably different since the planes flew into the World
Trade Center. “Everything changed”: This phrase has been shouted from every
media rooftop in America, and it simply isn’t true. For those Read More
Hanukkah was once a minor holiday, a playful reminder of miracles that cast a warming light against the winter darkness. The game of dreidel was an innocent sort of gambling pleasure: an easy way to teach children that chance is beyond cajoling, that you win or lose, double or nothing, depending on the breath in Read More
Tis the gift to be simple.” As a lifetime New Yorker, that’s one I have no use for. While the President pulls his Ponzi act with our Sept. 11 aid and his Attorney General wants to make it perfectly clear just who is in charge of our deaths, while visions of military tribunals dance through Read More
Faxed to me-perhaps by mistake-was a plan by the Bush administration to rebuild New York after the terrorist attacks. Why me? Probably because my fax number is only one digit away from that of the Ironworkers’ Union local, which is probably a cover for the Friends of Pat Robertson Social Group, which is actually a Read More
I greedily read with a lump in my throat (not to mention a certain frisson of fascination) about the trial of Rabbi Fred Neulander of Cherry Hill, N.J., who is accused of having his wife killed in order to carry on with the host of a radio talk show in Philadelphia. At least this murder Read More
The right wing in this country would die for their guns, while some of the rest of us do just that. They are jingoists down to the bone, and their patriotism has always smacked of smug, clichéd cliquishness to me. But the peace movement shaking its mothballed, tie-dyed head before our very eyes is a Read More
The days of man are as grass
He flourishes as a flower in the field
The wind passes over it and it is gone
And no one can recognize where it grew.
Reading these words in the Yom Kippur service last week, a great chill came over me. The thought is hardly new. Most Read More
Osama bin Laden (or some other Osama bin Laden) has pierced
the borders, entered our city and proved to all that we are mortal, that our
buildings can fall, our Pentagon split apart. Our planes can be pirated, our
steel structures melted, our sky filled with ash covering our faces, cars,
street signs. Our cell Read More
