My first time in Lyon and I was eating pickled pig feet. Or snouts? Well anyway, it was a lot of pig parts. My first time in Lyon and also my first bouchon. A bouchon—I realize now that I’ve tried one—is the kind of dining experience I enjoy; unfussy, cheap, locally specific, and delicious. To […]
I’ve taken a lot of pictures of churches but this might be my favorite. I had arrived in Senlis not long before, just off a plane, actually. I took a bus directly from the airport in Paris and in under a half hour I was standing in front of the church trying to figure out […]
Hey, I’m an art pilgrim; I’m always going to want to see the original. But when it came to Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, I was going to have to settle for looking at reproductions. This delicate manuscript has been preserved out of view in the Musée Condé in Chantilly France and […]
Last week I was in Montréal taking a bus to the Concordia University campus with instructions on how to find a hidden doorway. In other words, my vacation was going well. The Montréal Signs Project is a kind of sign museum (and maybe a bit of a sign graveyard). These signs were rescued from shuttered […]
For a couple of decades HOB and I slept in budget hotels and guest houses. In some countries (memorably Albania) the cheap rooms were clean and sometimes even lovely. In other countries (looking at you, France) there seemed to be a national effort to make these rooms poorly heated with sketchy beds reeking of body […]
Scientists have the best signs. Unions are the most organized. Federal workers are just…sad. Trans folks make accommodations for disabled people. Woman are savage. We’re the protesters. We’re the ones saving empty boxes for a clever sign. We’re the ones writing the name of an emergency contact on our leg with a sharpie. We’re the […]
The view of the English countryside during my 90 minute bus ride from Bath to Wells—with frost outlining the shingles on stone cottages and sheep finding patches of the rising sun to stand in—distracted me from an increasingly desperate need to pee. Fortunately, Wells Cathedral (and its restroom) was close to the bus stop. Like […]
I’ve worked in the arts since I was a teenager, with a brief exception in the mid-90’s, when I took a job at a chain bookstore. There—despite earning minimum wage—I was offered something my three freelance theater jobs were not providing: healthcare. My colleagues at that store were a dynamic and smart group and among […]
If I’m being honest, I never tried too hard to understand how government works in England. I like to think there are politicians wearing tweed suits sitting in wood, high-galleried rooms saying “My right honorable friend” and maybe the king shows up now and then. I have a just a vague idea of The House […]
It’s the holiday season, when English families long for a wholesome evening of fart jokes, fake smoke, sexual innuendo and drag. I’m in Bath, and last night I watched the Panto at Theatre Royal. Panto (or Pantomimes) run during the month around Christmas, but they aren’t holiday-themed shows. It seems like they are mostly loose […]
Picnic at the Cathedral 