Don’t you just love it after reading a story when you’re given the chance to catch up with the characters and learn what’s become of them?We’re only one month removed from the trip, but life in Los Angeles is surprisingly lovely. We use the word “surprising” because we were pretty much dreading our return. We […]
THE SACRED TEMPLE OF PIZZA
Our friend Lance in Los Angeles basically knows more about pizza than anybody we’ve ever met. As a matter of fact, he is a respected writer for the seminal pizza blog Slice — the first and last word in pizza on the net — where they do things like fly Lance to New York and […]
A DORMITORY IN ROMA
We’ve lived high, we’ve lived low. We’ve slept in castles, on wooden floors, in guest rooms, on trains, in tents, and on houseboats. But this was the first dorm room we ever slept in. And because we happened to show up between terms, we had the entire four building complex all to ourselves. The […]
TRAVELIN’ HEAVEN: THE KINDNESS OF FRIENDS’ PARENTS
While we were in Paris, we did a lot of long term planning (i.e. “Let’s go to Kenya in June”), but we neglected to figure out where we were going in the short term — as in immediately. So we drove out of Paris in a rented car, heading south, knowing nothing more than we […]
JE NE VEUX PAS QUITTER PARIS
This translates into the simple phrase: “I don’t want to leave Paris.” After 86 cities, 43 flights, and roughly 228 days on the move, we decided to spend 34 days parked in one place. We lived out of closets instead of suitcases, cooked meals for ourselves, rode the Metro and Velibs instead of airplanes. Mark […]
ON THE HOME FRONT: A FRIEND IN NEED
Even though we’ve been away from home for ten months, the internet keeps us tethered to our once and future lives. Back in Los Angeles, the community of our children’s school is the center of our family’s life. Westland School is a remarkable place and its progressive educational philosophy was one of the inspirations for […]
WE HAVE FUN TOGETHER
What does it mean to be “lifelong friends”? Well, Franny, Finn, Charlie and Sam bring literal meaning to the phrase. They met one another within 48 hours of each other’s birth — a consequence of the close friendship of their parents, Mark, Jen, P.K. and Beth. Now half a generation later, the Flackett-Levin family is […]
PROFILES IN CHUTZPAH: AN AMERICAN IN ISRAEL
Chutzpah (pronounced huuts-pah) is a Yiddish word that is used by Jews and non-Jews alike to describe someone who is particularly audacious or has a lot of “guts.” Meet Miriam Shler, visionary, feminist, mother, wife, pioneer, friend.
FINN REPORTS: OUR (YOUNG) MAN IN INDIA
In Varanasi, we spent a day visiting the 18-year old son of our close friends. Willy Gansa has been living there since September, participating in the Bridge Year Program before he begins his freshman year at Princeton University next fall. We asked our own young cub reporter Finn Flackett-Levin to write about Willy and our […]
WE CRY IN PUBLIC: KELLY GEISSMANN (1978-2012)
Today we lost a great friend who died way, way too young. Now we are slammed with the peculiar pain of anticipated heartbreak. We knew all too well that Kelly was sick, that she was down to her final months, weeks, and recently days. We had mourned for her many times in anticipation of losing […]