In July 2001, I was working as an editor and documentary filmmaker, often on celebrity-focused TV programs, when MSNBC commissioned me to make something more substantial: a one-hour film about life behind bars. The idea was for me to work with a dozen inmates, helping them record daily video diaries from their jail cells. I… Read More September 11th and the Holdenville redemption
There has been a lot of sneering lately about the pointlessness and hypocrisy of people “virtue signalling” on social media. To the cynics, this is the act of calling attention to your moral stances or publicly criticizing bad behavior in others. The BBC has told their journalists to avoid the appearance of it. And some… Read More The virtues of virtue signalling
My 12-year-old daughter is about to become a teenager and I’ve been thinking a lot lately about my own adolescence. As a parent, naturally, you want to share some of the things you enjoyed when you were young. But not everything. The other day, I asked her what she thought about the music of Led… Read More Better dead than Led
In 1989, when I was a student living in a dormitory at New York University, I was assigned a new roommate. Usually, you get to choose who you live with, but I hadn’t named a preference, so the housing office assigned me a random match. Come September, we met for the first time, when a… Read More How to burn flags and influence people
This is a true story. I’ve changed the names of everyone involved, partly because, even all these years later, I’m still a little bit worried that a middle-aged “Johnny Kaminski” might read it, recognise himself, hop on a plane from upstate New York, cross the Atlantic, go through customs, struggle with the Heathrow Express ticketing… Read More The dork who could dunk
My daughter believes that – this very morning – a giant mystical hare visited central London, dodging traffic to come up the stairs in our building, straight to our door and left a big basket of chocolates and small toys outside just for her. This is the same kid who questions core premises of Christianity,… Read More A magical rabbit? Are kids stupid?
For more than three years, I wrote a blog about being an American expat living in Britain. Despite all my time abroad, I never became an expert in “expat stuff.” You wouldn’t want me giving you advice on filing your taxes, absentee voting, or getting an international driving license. So I kept my blog focussed… Read More New York doesn’t love you back
I grew up in a very small town in upstate New York. No, not a town. Smaller. A village – 4,000 people at the most. It’s called Catskill, and it was founded by Dutch settlers, who bought a plot of land next to the Hudson River from some Mohican Indians in exchange for a few… Read More The country mouse dilemma
Uncle Jack A few years back, I had the good fortune to get to know my wife’s great-uncle, Jack. We would see him whenever we went to visit her family in California. Jack was well into his 80s and he lived in a little studio apartment that stood over the garage of the family’s beach house.… Read More Lola Jacuzzi and life’s whirlpool of regret
I have just finished watching Netflix’s new horror series The Haunting of Hill House. I found it intensely captivating and not just because it is smartly written and well produced. No, there is something else that deeply resonates with me about Hill House – an unexpected sense of familiarity. Believe it or not, this TV… Read More The haunting of Spring Street House – a real life ghost story