The entire city is Soviet gray, the architecture best described as ‘crumbling rectangle’ – too dirty and run down to be called brutalistic. Everything smells […]
Category: Places
Home. Viewed with Gimlet Eye.
Greenville, SC – Not my first time back. One of many, usually brief visits. To answer the question: – Proud of the progress it’s made […]
Oddly Familiar Echoes
For those of you who didn’t follow the Bulgarian Presidential election with me this Fall on my private channel – here’s the update. The 1st […]
All’s Well After the Bomb …
One year after the terrible bombing at the Erawan Shrine in the midst of the Erawan district of Bangkok, which is heavily trafficked by both […]
The Camden Track Runner
One evening, the train from Washington, DC to New York slowed to a near stop. We crept along for 10 minutes for mysterious reasons. Then, […]
Alone in the DEN
May, 2006 Not much to report. I finally made it to Denver. If you get out your map or Google Earth, you’ll discover that I’m about […]
My Apologies, 96 KitKats for Your Trouble
June 14, 2007 So I figured my luggage wouldn’t arrive in New Delhi yesterday when the rest of me arrived, and since this happened to me […]
The Beijing Waffle Incident
September, 2007 Well. Back in Beijing. Again. You might remember that I was here in March for the first time since May 2005. Many of […]
Kiss, Bow, Shake Hands, etc
Brief summary of the quirks of business outside the U.S. Had a conversation yesterday where I was being quizzed on the above. The answer, if […]
Canine Courtesy
Putting the “dog” conversation in context of places I’ve lived: Question: May I pet your dog? South Carolina Answer: A 20-minute conversation about how the […]
A Common Happening
Welcome to Chicago. May the wind be always at your back. May the road rise up to meet your feet. And may you never be […]
Back to Reality
Post-Burma culture shock. Jetlag edition. Noises that break the nighttime silence: — Burma – Fruit bats — New York – Snow plows Weather quirks: — […]
A Place Called Home(ish)
It was this month, 20 years ago when I landed here in Mexico City for the first time. My business partner and I had read […]
The Bus! The Bus? The Bus.
Breakfast at an outdoor table next to a bus stop. Watching the mixture of ages, income class, style and nationality pass by my breakfast table […]
Intra-urban Whiplash
Refresher course for my return to West Village: Uniform Midtown: Suit, tie, clean-shaven. Maybe a pair of hilarious, but tasteful shoes West Village: Black shirt, […]
Urban Whiplash
Yes, people who have asked, even for someone who has spent the past decade or so circling the world, 2 days a week in DC […]
It’s How Far?
Let me start by saying that I hate running. It’s boring. It hurts. It gets one nowhere fast. I do it anyway – Not to […]
To the Ratmobile!!
Earlier today, someone reminded me of the time a rat ran across my foot in a car while in New Delhi. Dug up the post […]
The Underworld
in the bizarro subway world: – it does not annoy me to get jostled, bumped or crushed – it is relaxing to watch rats play […]
Flashback Parade
Earlier today, it was just as the tattooed, heavily muscled guys on giant golden tricycles rode by on Madison Avenue, that I realized mangy Chewbacca […]
Gratitude (and a Slap)
Dear Middle East and Asia-based Airlines, I’m sitting on the floor next to a trash can at the San Francisco International Airport thinking about how […]
Can’t We All Just Move Along?
I guess it’s a sense of mutually-assured destruction that governs bicyclists behavior in the City. Sometimes a car hits a cyclist, sometimes a cyclist hits […]
A Beautiful Confusion
I can’t remember who said it to me first. It was a long time ago, but it’s true — There are many places on earth […]
The Smell of Home
As I sit here at dinner in LA, sniffing sea breeze and wood-fired meat, I’m thinking that in many ways, New York is defined by […]
The World is Going to End (Again)
During the years I’ve lived in New York, I’ve been through a few hurricanes, a snowpocalypse or two, several “biggest storm ever” and some “storms […]