Maundy Thursday, Notre Dame

This is the first Maundy Thursday in maybe 800 years without mass. Notre Dame is empty but for the ashes of her considerable hat, and the waterlog of the saving spray. There must be people who always have the triduum at Notre Dame, and this time, for the first year, they will hear the Passover […]

Here and There

Sunday morning. Brooklyn, I descend two stories of stairs, and our stained and dinged pressed-in patterns on the plaster. Places there were holes, there is now a smooth smear instead of the pattern. I walk the walk to the subway, the walk to the station that is so many lengths: so long when you are […]

Back and Front

There are alleys here. When the Coen brothers filmed “Inside Llewyn Davis,” they had trouble finding an alley in Manhattan because there are not alleys in Manhattan. Space is not reserved for trash and rats– space is shared with trash and rats. Except in the oldest part of town, where the foundations are too old, […]

Pivot

Because there was a giant cardboard Moulin Rouge windmill on top of it, I was driving my sister’s car very slowly. Mardi Gras proceeds deliberately. So slowly people can get in and out of the car/float in progress. Somebody got in the passenger seat. We chatted about history in the area, Mardi Gras and otherwise. […]