Mabel and I are at The Peabody, making sure everything is in order for her upcoming nuptials. Mabel is disappointed that Topper isn’t coming. “How rude of him,” she exclaims. I shrug. “You have to bring someone,” she insists. “I’ve put you two down.” I sigh. “But I told you it would just be meContinue reading “Chapter 51: Today, Tomorrow and Forever”
Author Archives: My World of Interiors
Frank Bowling
Essay · Art & Lives The Painter Who Crossed Every Ocean Frank Bowling arrived in London from British Guiana in 1953 with no art education and a desire to be a poet, and became, across the following seven decades, one of the most significant painters working in the English language — a phrase that wouldContinue reading “Frank Bowling”
Sam Neill, Actor of Watchful Intelligence Who Roamed From Dinosaurs to Deep Drama, Dies at 78
By Bergotte Sam Neill, the New Zealand-born actor whose long, restless career carried him from the art houses of the Australian New Wave to the teeth of a Tyrannosaurus rex in “Jurassic Park,” and who brought a dry, watchful intelligence to nearly every part he played, died on Monday in Sydney, Australia. He was 78.Continue reading “Sam Neill, Actor of Watchful Intelligence Who Roamed From Dinosaurs to Deep Drama, Dies at 78”
Chapter 50: Poison Ivy League
The boy is nervous about going on, the venue is only half full in Philadelphia. The Northeast hasn’t been won over by him, and it stands in stark contrast to the rest of the country. I feel almost embarrassed on behalf of Pennsylvania and all these places where I spent so many of my formativeContinue reading “Chapter 50: Poison Ivy League”
The World According To Garp
Essay · Literature & Ideas A Novel About Everything That Can Go Wrong, Written With Love The World According to Garp is a novel about a novelist, which gives John Irving permission to make it about everything else: about mothers and sons, about feminism and its discontents, about the randomness of violent death, about theContinue reading “The World According To Garp”
Chapter 49: Love and Marriage
Topper and I return to the house from dinner in Palm Springs. Mr S and Ms Bacall have walked ahead of us and are already inside, deep in conversation. When Mr S finds me alone by the pool, he hands me a drink and settles beside me. “You know, baby, Cary was right,” he says.Continue reading “Chapter 49: Love and Marriage “
Stop Making Sense: David Byrne and the Art of Intelligent Strangeness
He arrived in New York with a ukulele and a stammer and an idea that pop music could be the vehicle for the most serious questions a person could ask. Fifty years later, the former lead singer of Talking Heads remains the most restlessly curious, most formally inventive, most genuinely odd figure in American popularContinue reading “Stop Making Sense: David Byrne and the Art of Intelligent Strangeness”
Chapter 48: Loving You
Back at Bryn Mawr, I’m racing to finish my senior thesis, determined to do it quickly and well. Tilly is supposed to be working too, but she’s distracted. Buddy comes down to visit us so often that their constant antics are beginning to get on my nerves. More than once, I slip a noise complaintContinue reading “Chapter 48: Loving You”
Tove Ditlevsen
Essay · Literature & Lives The Copenhagen Trilogy and the Cost of Seeing Clearly Tove Ditlevsen wrote about the interior lives of women — their desires, their loneliness, their addiction, their marriages, their children, their slow suffocation inside the arrangements that society had made for them — with a directness and a formal precision thatContinue reading “Tove Ditlevsen”
Affordable Style: Inns and Guesthouses of Essaouira & the Atlas Foothills
Morocco’s Atlantic coast and mountain landscapes offer a different kind of escape: atmospheric, artisanal, and surprisingly affordable. While Marrakech draws luxury seekers, the port town of Essaouira and the villages of the Atlas foothills remain places where riads, kasbahs, and guesthouses welcome travellers with warmth and character. Here, affordable style is woven into hand-carved woodenContinue reading “Affordable Style: Inns and Guesthouses of Essaouira & the Atlas Foothills”
My World of Interiors 