Category: Columns

  • Pinot Noir for Picnics

    How I hate modern motor roads. Come let me count the ways. First there is the intimate shame of personal inadequateness. I know my reactions while driving are not swift enough to be safe at fifty-five miles per hour—in fact, they are unsafe at any speed, as my family says. All too often I will…

  • Back to the Bone

    One of those basic-cable lifestyle programs recently ran an episode on a hotel/spa that caters to the dogs of celebrities. Andy Warhol would have loved it. Classical music gets piped into a sleeping chamber lined with rows of plush dog beds. Guests drink from personalized Baccarat crystal water dishes and dine on cubed beef filets…

  • Body and Soul

    In springtime, every man’s fancy turns to love–and, in my case, to commencement speeches. I love reading them, listening to them, critiquing them, even the bad ones. I dream of marching with colleagues through a cheering thong of graduates, resplendent in flowing robes, and delivering a simple yet powerful address that brings the youthful crowd…

  • A Passion of Patience

    Watching people in museums is often as absorbing as studying the displays. Some years ago, my old tutor was standing under the great sixth-century dome of the Holy Wisdom in Istanbul, lecturing to a rather tweedy group of English country gentry. His audience was starting to suffer from museum leg, when a pigeon detached itself…

  • Better Living Through Television

    Hi! I’m Colleen Kruse. I’m that pal of yours who is the proud owner of the Richard Caruso Molecular Hairsetter, the Miracle Blade/Ginsu Knife Garnish Set, the Euro Broom, the Magic Bullet, the Vitamix. Let’s not forget the Kitchen Plus 2000, either. These products are the fruits of hours spent watching late-night infomercials. I was…

  • Education for the Masses

    Seventeen years ago, I received a degree from the University of Michigan Law School, one of America’s top schools. My Harvard undergraduate degree opened doors at Michigan, and both of those degrees have opened other doors ever since–a fact that I have always appreciated. I have since learned that it’s our humanity, not paper credentials,…