July 2005 Archives
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The Non-Expert
Fabled Again
Experts answer what they know. The Non-Expert answers anything. This week: An overstuffed mailbag means a lot of questions are begging to be answered, and we know the only way to satisfy those hungry for knowledge—goats.
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Things
The Clove Hitch
Want to impress those bougie jerks down at the marina? Skip the overhand knots and girth hitches favored by landlubbers. The proper way to moor your skiff is with a...
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Letters From London
London Underground
Terror strikes twice in as many weeks. A major city is disrupted, and discomfort is widespread. Our London correspondent sends us three days’ dispatches about life on the tube.
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Music
Listen/Now
Only once Roxy Music went on hiatus in 1976 did guitar virtuoso Phil Manzanera finally find the time to recruit a cavalcade of musicians and record Listen/Now, his second solo...
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Things
Michael Graves Speakers
An Alessi teapot designed by Michael Graves sits atop my stove as a grave marker to my past affluence--Graves claims that he began to design for Target because he couldn't...
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Spoofs & Satire
Kafka in the Green Zone
It’s difficult to make friends in the middle of warfare, but the least you can do is try. Join the existentialist as he rapidly descends through his tour of duty.
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Restaurants
Pomodoro
Pomodoro in Boston's North End is unpretentious Italian dining at its best. The restaurant works trattoria style: eight tables huddled in a small room with a hard-working waiter busting his...
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Gallery
No Yellow Jerseys Here
The thighs may be as thick, the spandex just as tight, the stench of grease and melting energy bars just as rank—but the 2005 Cycle Messenger World Championships is a far cry from the Tour de France. A story and photo gallery from the race.
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Peanut
One in 285 (February)
Discovering the sex of your unborn child is a cause for celebration, and then baskets of new and unexpected anxieties. A new chapter in our writer’s pursuit of fatherhood.
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New York, New York
No Yellow Jerseys Here
The thighs may be as thick, the spandex just as tight, the stench of grease and melting energy bars just as rank—but the 2005 Cycle Messenger World Championships is a far cry from the Tour de France. A story and photo gallery from the race.
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Movies
Mantle
Narrated by Bob Costas, Mantle, HBO's documentary on Yankee great Mickey Mantle, has terrific old footage and interviews everybody--teammates, celebrities, the wife, AND the mistress. It's appropriately reverent of Mickey's...
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Things
Grass
Long grass, shiny grass, waxen grass, flaxen grass, public grass, private grass, grass that's fresh on the lawn, grass in a field you've just sat on, grass that's old, grass...
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Personal Essays
Types of Stories My Mother Tells
As it begins, you’re pretty sure you’ve heard this one before. Wait, no, maybe this time it’s different. Maybe this time it’ll have an extra nugget of sage advice. Maybe? A catalog of favorite themes.
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Destinations
The Red Cross
Summer tends to be a time for self-centered pursuits--picnics, suntans, and murder mysteries among them. The perfect way to balance out your me-time? Head to your local Red Cross blood...
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Web
The Perry Bible Fellowship
The New Yorker's caption contest is challenging, but The Perry Bible Fellowship proves that some of the finer cartoons need no captions. Right here is where I'd say something about...
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Birnbaum v.
Ian McEwan
It can take six weeks to write six minutes of fiction, and that’s not so bad. A conversation with the author of Saturday about taking the time to do your thing, the changing face of literary culture, and how everybody really can write a novel.
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Music
Annie Lennox at Live 8
I've never been much of an Annie Lennox fan. I just wasn't old enough, or gay enough, to really dig the whole diva thing. Which is why her performance at...
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Notes From the Lawn
Insects and Expats
No matter how many ferns we arrange or seedlings we covet, many of us have a very complicated relationship with the landscape. This week: A London bumblebee needs no help, thank you.
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The Education of Elisabeth Eckleman
Haunted Halloween
It’s Elisabeth Eckleman’s first year of college, and she has a lot of tough choices to make. In this installment, Elisabeth takes her T.A., Raj, to a costume party, where he refuses to dance. You decide what happens next.
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Things
Cacao Nibs
Looking to add a little adult action to your drab kitchen rut? Short of becoming a real naked chef--something I don't advise; you can suffer some nasty ass burns--pick up...
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Movies
Hot Summer
You and your strapping Caucasian friends are looking forward to a pleasant vacation on the shore, perhaps hooking up with equally comely and tall teenagers, and then romping on a...
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Spoofs & Satire
Farewell, Tour
The tickets cost too much, the band didn’t play long enough, somebody keeps stealing my seat, and the drunk guy is annoying me and my girlfriend. A letter to whoever is in charge.
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Spoofs & Satire
The Homeland Security Annuals Budget
What looks better with sandbags—marigolds or bluebonnets? A privied look at how the decisions are made on what to plant and where, and ways to beautify a bollard.
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Destinations
New York City Downtown Boathouse
There are some things you just can't do in Manhattan. Bungee jumping and gambling, for example. But there are some things you can do, and believe it or not one...
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Op-Ed
Sincerely Yours LOL!
The recent publication of Robert Lowell’s letters makes us wonder, will someday collections of today’s scribblers’ correspondence include emoticons? A look at the last gasps of letter writing.
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Books
Housekeeping
Marilynne Robinson's recent book Gilead wears its acclaim and awards like a hairshirt, but it's her earlier novel Housekeeping that mesmerized me. The story of two girls and a nearby...
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Peanut
How About Those Knicks? (January)
Your child’s tastes—for a particular brand of peanut butter, or milk, or religion—are up for grabs once she’s out of the womb. But what happens if she turns into a Knicks freak, Mr. No-Sports-Knowledge-Whatsoever? More notes on our writer’s long nine months.
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Books
Chronicles
While I don't think I'll ever succumb to listening to books instead of reading them, I am regularly inclined to revisit something I have read by having a go at...
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The Non-Expert
The New American Music
Experts answer what they know. The Non-Expert answers anything. From 2005, rather than Yankee-Doodling every Fourth of July, here are some patriotic melodies that are more fun to sing and easier to remember.
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Television
Battlestar Galactica
And so the learner becomes the master. In 1978 the original Battlestar Galactica was one of many space operas riding the coattails of Star Wars' success; in 2003 the Sci-Fi Channel aired...