In the city of Xian, China, a bird flits along a ten-inch wooden perch inside a mahogany-colored cage. I don’t know what kind of bird it is, but the cage itself catches my attention. Cylindrical and peaked at the top and bottom, it is shaped like the […]
A few years ago, a cryptic acronym began to appear in my social media feeds: “FKT.” Too lazy to look it up, I assumed it was expletive-based shorthand for the exasperated athletes who used it in association with stupidly long undertakings like ultramarathons and “Everesting,” where a cyclist attempts to climb the height of Mt. […]
“To finish is to win.” – Josh Billings
“If you’re not first, you’re last,” – Ricky Bobby
This year’s season at Tanglewood will end with a flourish: back-to-back nights with Van Morrison and Ringo Starr is about as impressive a finale to their concert season as anyone could conjure, short of the ghost of John Lennon sitting in […]
This is a beautiful part of the country, it really is. At least once a week, a certain slant of light or the fleeting glimpse of a fox reminds me how lucky we are to live amidst such natural wonders.
But March?
This year, that fifth month of winter nudged me toward a madness that inspired the […]
When interscholastic sports first appeared, it was in the form of school organizations that reached out to neighboring schools in the manner of colleges and universities. Track and field, baseball, and football clubs eventually became teams, which in turn spawned leagues, divisions, state championships, and cottage industries […]
I hope this finds you in a quiet place: the armchair by the window, a glass of cabernet at your elbow. Or under a baffle of comforters, with the bed stand lamp the only light on in the house. I’d even take a bathroom, so long as […]
There are few pieces of furniture as loyal as a couch. Part-time seating support, part-time napping support, they endure the clawing of cats, the gnawing of dogs, the marathon binge-watching sessions, and the rambunctious kid who trampolines all over them. Apple founder Steve Jobs famously spent a decade in search of the Goldilocks sofa, preferring […]
It’s a brilliant fall morning. You wake up, look out the window at the maples ablaze in yellow and decide to go for a hike. You throw a water bottle and a granola bar in a day pack, lace up your trail runners, and dash to the nearest trailhead, only to find it crammed with […]
Deep in Mount Washington State Forest is a waist-high piece of granite. Intrepid hikers with a few hours to burn can reach it without too much trouble for the experience of standing on three states at once. Position yourself on one side of it, you’re in New York. […]
The night required a couple layers of wool but no headlamp. As I stepped down from my truck at the Undermountain Trailhead in Salisbury, CT, a row of pines stood before me like a curtain, awash in moonlight, blue and bare like a Hopper painting, though no