Trip to Russia. Day 1. Moscow. Off to the right and through Gorky Park

Trip to Russia. Day 1. Moscow. Off to the right and through Gorky Park

“In Moscow, you’d sit in an enormous parlor of a restaurant where you don’t know anybody and nobody knows you and you don’t feel that you’re a stranger. And here, you know everybody and everybody knows you, and you’re a stranger, a stranger… and a 

Trip to Russia. Departure Day — Arrival Day. From Ridgewood to Moscow

Trip to Russia. Departure Day — Arrival Day. From Ridgewood to Moscow

We did get a few sympathetic words from friends about night flight hardships but it was our firm plan to fly a red eye. Direct. JFK to Moscow. Nine hours and some. Our plane was scheduled to take off after midnight NY time and land 

A Faithful Man

A Faithful Man

French comedy at its best. Marianne (Laetitia Casta, familiar to most probably as a former Victoria’s Secret model) announces to Abel (Louis Garrel, known outside French cinema as one of the twins from Bertolucci’s The Dreamers) that she is pregnant and the baby is not 

That time we went to taste Queens

That time we went to taste Queens

— Did you tell her she can eat!?!? It was a little after 8 AM on a sunny April Sunday of 2009. I was upstairs in the bathroom getting ready. Downstairs, Tom caught our nine-year-old Lizzie sneaking cereal in the pantry. No, I didn’t tell 

Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo – Men in Tights

Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo – Men in Tights

Lizzie saw an ad for Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo in one of The New Yorker issues lying around the house and got four tickets including Charlotte, me, and one of her friends. She knew the show was the day after her wisdom teeth 

Shoplifters

Shoplifters

——— MILD PLOT SPOILERS ———  This Cannes Festival winner is the story of six people from three different generations living together in a tight quarters somewhere in an area of Tokyo that would never be marked in tourist guides. At first, they appear to be 

The Favourite

The Favourite

Aurore Dudevant, better known as George Sand, once referred to men kidding themselves they hold power: Let them think they decide. It seems like this is the bottom line of The Favourite, a movie with three strong female leads and a bunch of men in 

Bridges of Dutchess County

Bridges of Dutchess County

The original plan for the weekend was Jersey Shore but the weather was not cooperating. Over Central Jersey, the radar loop was showing solid green band with occasional yellow-red spots. Since the skies up north looked better, we decided to cross another trip off our 

Two Mussel Suckers in the Land of Clam Diggers

Two Mussel Suckers in the Land of Clam Diggers

It is said that the residents of City Island refer to the visitors as “mussel suckers” while calling themselves “clam diggers,” maybe going back to the days when clam digging was in abundance. Clam digging stopped but the name remained.  Until 1896, City Island was 

Friedrich Schiller, Love and Intrigue

Friedrich Schiller, Love and Intrigue

The plot of this play in a nutshell: Someone has to marry someone to advance the interests of the state. But this first someone is in love with someone else. To protect itself, the state destroys that someone else, the first someone, and a bunch