Architecture & art
Exhaustion from traveling had taken its toll. I craved sleep, but was not comforted by the platform posing as a bed, shaking as the night train made its way south to Moscow. Sightseeing in the …
There are lots of reasons why you might like to have a handy day-trip plan for NYC. Perhaps you’re sitting bored out of your tree in one of the many cities that supports a super-discount …
After traveling all around southern Spain this past year, we figured it was finally time to give some love to northern Spain. We started with 3 days in Spain's Catelonian capital, Barcelona. The minute we …
In Paradise Valley, overlooking the 70,900-acre Agua Fria National Monument, is the Cosanti gallery, studio and home to 93-year-old anti-materialist architect and urban planner Paolo Soleri. It isn’t surprising that this author of six books, …
I braved Carmageddon II on a September Saturday and visited L.A. to explore the individual creations of two iconoclastic L.A. visionaries. Located in vastly different sections of L.A., the Watts Towers and Eames House represent …
An easy 1.5-hour train ride from Rome got us into Florence midday. After gathering our bearings (and a map), we set off to drop our bags off at our flat before exploring the city. We …
There is an old Russian folktale that says that in days gone by, young married couples were locked inside a granary shed for privacy during their wedding night. True or not, it’s a story that …
I’m in love with a dead man. Honestly, if there ever was a Man of Men to pine for, it would be Cabot Yerxa, who died three years after I was born. Not only was …
In the twenty-four years of my life I spent in Romania, I never had the occasion to visit a unique place in Transylvania called the Merry Cemetery. So, about two months ago, I called my …
Just north of Salt Point State Park, half way between Point Reyes National Seashore and Fort Bragg along the Pacific Coastal Highway, is a place called Sea Ranch. About 300 of the 1,800 uniformly shingle-clad, …
I’ve been listening to the jazz pianist Dave McKenna, who died in 2008. He was a lyrical swing artist with some of Bill Evans’s melancholy, though he wasn’t as inventive as Evans and didn’t have …
You can immerse yourself in the culture of Central Europe without ever leaving the States by heading to Cleveland. Between the food, music and neighborhoods, there are lots of exotic pockets in the city that …
From August 29th through September 10th, music will echo through some of Utah’s most scenic canyons. The Moab Music Festival aims to merge music with the natural landscape found along the Colorado River in the …
When I saw Ridley Scott’s film Prometheus, I was reminded that our best filmmakers are now nearly sole proprietors of the visionary mood. Scott’s movie, with its spectral holographic conjurings of mythic ancestors spiraling through …