For ritual nerds like me, imagining the origins of longstanding practices, understanding how they changed, and imagining how they might continue to evolve is a favorite pastime. The roots of most religious customs extend back centuries (or even millennia), so reconstructing their beginnings relies on assembling historical data and reviewing…
Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew. This one is no different. It is a portal, a gateway between one world and the next.
We can choose to walk through it, dragging the carcasses of our prejudice and hatred, our avarice, our…
Once upon a time, I racked up frequent flyer miles on multiple airlines and stamps and punches in my passport. I navigated airports with ease and confidence, and I judged people who fumbled their way through the security screening — subtly, though probably not as subtly as I imagined. I…
This week’s most salacious scandal came from the world of [gasp] professional sports. I know, right? Can you believe it? Is it a National Coming Out Day miracle? As the New York Times reported, the head coach of the Las Vegas Raiders resigned after a trove of his emails surfaced…
Who, day and night, must scramble for a living,
Feed a wife and children, say his daily prayers?
And who has the right, as master of the house,
To have the final word at home?
The Papa, the Papa! Tradition.
“Tradition,” the first big number in Fiddler on the Roof…
I fell in love with the first cute girl that I met
Who could appreciate Georges Bataille
Standing at a Swedish festival discussing “Story of the Eye”
Discussing “Story of the Eye”
It’s so embarrassing to need someone like I do you
How can I explain, I need you here and not here too…
Sometimes I…
Juliet:
What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call’d,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title. …
I love weddings. I’ve always loved weddings. By the time I was able to drive, I’d already been to dozens of weddings (the result of being both the youngest of a large family and a dependable altar boy eager to work weekends) and had some very hard opinions about how…
“Did you really teach Katie Ledecky how to ride a bike?”
For a few years, I coordinated a high school social action program, and junior and senior students committed to volunteer at a single site for the entire year. While we’d been sending students to a handful of sites for…
