Month

Raquel Welch died yesterday, and with her goes another little piece of my childhood. Or perhaps, I should say, pre-adolescence. Whatever. I’m not really an expert on these distinctions, despite going through them again, as a parent, with my son, now closing in on 18. Circa 1971, my parents—uncharacteristically—purchase a poster of Raquel Welch to display for a party. Maybe the goal is to entice guests downstairs and

I began this essay at 12:53 AM, on a Sunday night—or I should say, Monday morning. It is now 2:15 AM, and still I’m not ready to go to bed. I’m not ready for this weekend to end; I’m not ready to go back to work tomorrow morning and get on with my life. I’m also not going to fuss endlessly over these words, as I often do, and just get them online so I can be done with them. Stream of consciousness. Sometimes it works

I can think of only one proper way to begin this tribute to my father, and that is to retell his two proudest achievements from the 1970s: For years David defined himself with these two touchstones, at least to immediate family. He would drop the phrases into conversation––“former chief of staff, played clarinet at the Guthrie”—when he wanted to emphasize who he was, not that the issue was ever in doubt. Mount Sinai