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Confronting the Star Wars Myth

by | Dec 31, 2019 | Arts, Essays

I had come to a multiplex in the Boston suburbs on Christmas morning expecting to enjoy a movie alone, or at very least in the company of only a handful of non-Christian refugees from the barrage of Yuletide cheer. I was wrong; the screening room was packed with...

Navigating the Festival of Lights

by | Dec 23, 2019 | Essays

“And now, Matthew will come up and tell us about Chanukah,” Miss Shultz said. “It’s the Jewish Christmas.” I froze in my chair, looking straight ahead at my teacher’s expectant smile. I felt the eyes of my second-grade classmates boring into me. It was one of those...

Autumn Leaves

by | Nov 11, 2019 | Essays

I feel closer to my father in early November than at any other time of the year. It was always then, in late autumn – when the fallen leaves lay in deep mats, or raked into towering piles in the parks and yards of Montreal, following the first killing frosts, and just...

American Militarism

by | Oct 31, 2019 | Essays

The honor guard marched onto the field as patriotic music blared from the minor-league ballpark’s PA system. A contingent of US Marines wheeled smartly and marched to the infield under the billowing Stars and Stripes in their pressed dress blues, with their white caps...

The Myth of the 99 Percent

by | Sep 4, 2019 | Essays

I. Zuccotti Park It started with a blinding light that flooded the encampment at Zuccotti Park at about 1:00 am on November 15, 2011. The angular shadow of the “Big Orange Thing” – Mark di Suvero’s ironically-titled sculpture “Joie de Vivre” – rippled in high-contrast...