Category Archives: Uncategorized

Friends and other characters who are making this time in the Marche especially memorable. A monkish fellow and harpist atop one of the four towers of il Rocco at Senigallia. He’s reading from Dante’s Commedia, part of the time-trippy visions … Continue reading →

Urbino is a thick exhibition of hills shared by walkers, Italian-talkers and residential Fiats. Surrounding the two grand piazzas is a hive of narrow cobblestone paths steeped in the shade of ancient buildings. This is my fourth four-week residence, and … Continue reading →

Six of us drove the winding road out of Urbino toward the Adriatic, halfway to Pesaro, for a memorable dinner in the sun-splashed dusk. Locanda Montelippo is a country inn that features its locally sourced dishes and regional wines. A … Continue reading →

The American students in this four-week multimedia class are taught to look for their “story” within their assigned “leads.” Lurking underneath their reporting, there’s a compelling story to tell in words, in photos and in video. But how do they … Continue reading →

We’ve all seen ruins that look ruined – the wobbly low lines of old stone that a Park Service guide or historical sign tells us are the original foundations of a 17th century church or fort. Picture broken low walls … Continue reading →

Urbino Jazz Club, Urbino, Italy. May 28, 2019. “Bravi! Bravi!” someone from the Japanese opera company added over the applause. The 11-piece improv ensemble had finished about 40 minutes of playing a mostly unstructured experiment in free jazz after quick … Continue reading →

There are other names for Lexington, Virginia, and environs, names fashioned in the minds of creative folk who lived here. A French exchange student who somehow landed at Washington and Lee University in the mid-1950s, Philippe Labro, called it Genoa, … Continue reading →

George Pryde, a retired ad man who lives in Lexington, introduced my March 10 talk on Tom Wolfe to the local branch of the English Speaking Union. I told him to leave in the flattering error of saying Wolfe and … Continue reading →

I was working for the Providence Journal-Bulletin, stuck in a little bureau in Johnston, R.I., when I typed out a two-page proposal for why a maniacal editor named Joel Rawson should send me to Atlanta to do a story on … Continue reading →

More than two years of Trump’s presidency have passed since I wrote this op-ed that ran in the Roanoke Times (Feb. 5, 2017). The only thing that is surprising about the last two years is that there are few surprises … Continue reading →