“I was very strongly drawn to him and, in spite of the difference in our ages, a great attachment sprang up between us.”
Henry James’ muses, the bust in his dining room, and a sort of secret dynasty
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The cupboard under Charles Darwin’s stairs
This is the cupboard under the stairs in Down House where Charles Darwin stored the evidence of his explosive theory for nearly two decades.
Both of my current books are now out!
As of now, my two current Frommer’s guides are officially released! One came out in November, and one is just released. For your health’s sake, I do not recommend writing two entire 256-page books at once.
The polite omissions of James Buchanan’s Wheatland tour
James Buchanan was a lousy president and probably loved another man. What does the museum at his home in Lancaster, PA, have to say?
Omnisciencia
I have self-diagnosed myself with omnisciencia. It’s the debilitating state that develops when you try to keep up with everything that’s going on.
A Walt Disney World guidebook for the rest of us
Most of the other Disney guides seemed to be crypto-valentines. The market was missing a guide to Walt Disney World written for the way most of us react to the resort.
New Zealand, Savior of American Cinematic History
Ironically, the heedless way the world viewed silent movies was the very thing that allowed these copies to survive unnoticed at the end of the consumption chain.
The stupid symbolism of the new World Trade Center
The new World Trade Center’s symbolic height is wrongheaded, jingoistic, and ultimately embarrassing.
What the anti-SeaWorld documentary ‘Blackfish’ leaves out
People acted all surprised when Siegfried and Roy’s tiger attacked, too. Tourists won’t admit complicity; danger is why they go.
Boston Marriage in Old Atlanta: An iPhone rings a silent Bell
A forgotten poet was resurrected by AT&T, which normally can’t raise a signal much less the dead. But with a little smartphone gumshoeing, I had deciphered an enduring lesbionic relationship hidden in plain sight in the middle of Atlanta’s staunchest Rebel cemetery. It was like a gay Da Vinci Code!