Have a heart for Roiphe’s past

Why do so many people want to read Art and Madness, Anne Roiphe’s memoir about sex, booze and literary ambition?

Why I love Joan Micklin Silver

I wish every movie I saw had the effect on me that director Joan Micklin Silver’s Hester Street, Crossing Delancey and Chilly Scenes of Winter have whenever I see them (three times each so far).

My old flame

On my way to work one morning, I spied an old flame. He had an unkempt, professorial look and he was dragging a trolley full of books behind him. Could I still be enamored of such a shlumpy looking personage?

The various offerings of the world

I am still trying to figure out why some consumer products companies do not tell you where they produce their goods. Aren’t they proud of their manufacturing plants?

Spawn of the devil’s own whore

Of course I am not superstitious. I do not throw salt over my shoulder, I walk underneath ladders and Friday the thirteenth is just another day. But I fully understand why people in earlier centuries believed that cats are the spawn of the devil’s own whore.

Trains, automobiles and a rainy night in NYC

I didn’t want to take my podcasting equipment into the subway. It’s bulky. It’s heavy, and in rush hour, I would have to worry about keeping track of it. I worried too that some canny mugger would figure out what I was carrying and jump me. It’s crazy to admit, but I was hoping for another obstacle.

But she didn’t bite off my ear

My instinct is to walk past desperate people, especially when they ask me for help. But given that we have just passed through a season of introspection and repentance, I figured I would be like George Costanza on the day he decided to behave in a way contrary to his usual habits.

Sylvie, the battered rebbetzin

That’s Sylvie, the rabbi’s wife, flying across the room. Her husband beats her.

What’s the emergency? Take the egg challah!

I wanted to tell the woman on line at the bakery, “Shut up already about the whole wheat challah! If Hurricane Earl comes, you’ll hunker down with your family and eat egg challah instead.” How do you tell a complete stranger to get a life?

I meet bizarro me at the gym

Jill and I were exercising on side-by-side elliptical machines when she told me she was mourning the death of her boyfriend. She had been with Ken, the love of her life and a man married to another woman, for sixteen years. Ken’s wife would not consent to a divorce, so he lived a dual life with a home in a wealthy Long Island suburb and lots of travel around the world with Jill. So, why does Jill think I have so much in common with her?