I have seen the future, and it is a chain-smoking chimpanzee typist: a chest-beating, keyboard-banging columnist for The New York Times who does on paper what he does to the floor—take a massive dump. Yesterday, he used his column to empty his cage. He listed his belongings for sale, including a trampoline, a safety net,
The initials JFK are shorthand for tailors and typesetters alike. The letters adorn barrel cuffs and shirt pockets, where the stitching is surgical in its precision and subtle in its placement: a hand-sewn monogram, in indigo or ivory, that matches the darkest color of a particular fabric. The letters have regional and national significance. They
Picture Victory in Europe Day not as an hour of triumph but as a moment of tribulation in which, instead of thanking Englishmen for their strength and stamina, instead of standing alongside ministers of many parties and almost every point of view, instead of standing in defense of King and Country, Winston Churchill stood alone—behind
He was two names in one. Not Rick, Richard, or Ricardo. Neither Ricky nor Jay, but Ricky Jay. Rick—ee. J—ay. Ricky Jay. He was fluent in Mamet speak: ready to do the thing, because he said he would do the thing; the thing he talked about, which was his thing; that this thing—everything was secondary
The wooden, zebra-striped arm—the mechanical limb attached to a squat torso—where cars stop and drivers lower their windows and strain to accept a paper wafer of a ticket before they circumnavigate the levels of this hellish parking garage, before they park their cars and check their teeth in the rear-view windows of their respective sports
A portrait of chosenness, of a chosen people, whose status was not a sign of superiority but a symbol of suffering: of barren fields and broken bodies—of plagues of dust and drought—poisoned by the pestilence of death. Such was America in 1621, 1863, 1934, and 1963. Such was the first Thanksgiving. Such was
It was not the last word he said, but it was the final word he may have heard. It began in the morning and ended that same day with the nation—and the free world—in mourning. It was both a sentiment and a sight. It was written on signs and placards. It was the name of
William Goldman was the 10th dentist, the outlier among the nine out of 10 dentists who recommend Crest. Untrained and unlicensed, he did more to fight cavities than a global communist conspiracy to fluoridate America’s water supply. His secret: a Nazi dentist—redundant, I know—who introduced himself to patients, before introducing the instruments of torture, by
The demonic-shaped face of a cyclone, with two fireballs for eyes—the earthly equivalent of solar flares, with long filaments of plasma—whose pursed lips are like the world’s largest vacuum, suctioning all the dust and debris from the Great Basin—all the sand of Nevada, all the sediment of Oregon, all the stones of Colorado, Utah, and
Picture the scene transition—the spin, the blur, and the fade-away—as we segue from footage of the Hitler Youth to a fleet of newspaper delivery trucks outside Grand Central Station in New York City, where the roll-up doors open and drivers hurl stacks of comic books—of the same comic book—bundled together with twine, as the camera
