BLOG

Ian Taylor is a good friend, and he likes his games. Maybe it’s a British thing or maybe Ian is just the competitive sort, I’m not sure. He was my first good friend in Aix-en-Provence, some 16 years ago, crossing paths at Collège Mignet as our kids prepared for junior-high. Many a rosé-splashed afternoon followed, time well wasted in his cottage garden playing pétanque, darts, ping-pong, or something pulled from a deep box of board and card games. Ian, I just want to sit in t

Personae non Gratae (n): Plural for a person who is unacceptable or unwelcome. Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary An international man of mystery. That’s me, minus the mystery. I grew up with a big imagination in small town Pennsylvania, in a stunning sketch of pastoral beauty nestled between the Blue and Tuscarora Mountains of the Appalachian chain. Picture rolling green hills dotted with small dairy farms and commanding grain silos. This is God’s country, mostly Protestant, sett

I was at an Eid al-Fitr celebration in San Francisco this past weekend. It is a Muslim fete at the end of Ramadan, the festival of breaking the fast . There was a joyous scene bubbling along Golden Gate Avenue in the Tenderloin, an immigrant neighborhood bordering the Civic Center where I live. Bouncing houses and shawarma popups, ethnic music and dancing, olive oils from Jordan and pottery from Palestine, an open air clothing bazar selling all manner of niqabs and hijabs and