My great friend, Jack Woodruff, died not long ago. I have wrestled unsuccessfully with that sad fact for a while. It is hard to describe...

Uh, oh. Here it comes, a tiny, fast-moving speck arcing high in the air. It is hard to see against the cloudy sky but it is there, headed...

In one of the classic scenes from The Magnificent Seven, a movie jammed with classic scenes, a Zen Master gunman named Britt uses a...

This was one of Colton’s best memories from his days as a Navy SEAL: “My platoon was training for an op — a nighttime recovery of a...

I first published this piece several years ago on the occasion of our 40th anniversary. Today is our 47th anniversary but I couldn’t...

Get the newspaper on the porch. That’s it. Get the newspaper on the porch, every time, on time, without fail, and the world will find...

Le Bar Anglais, Hotel Régina, Paris One of the most appealing contradictions in Paris is Le Bar Anglais (The English Bar) located in the...

The young woman pictured is the legendary French actress, Isabelle Adjani. She is darting across a street in Paris in 1974. Judging from...

My favorite episode of The X-Files is a show entitled Je Souhaite (I Wish.) It was written and directed by Vince Gilligan who achieved...

Two thousand years ago, in a land now known as Hungary, the Celts established a settlement on the western bank of the Danube River and...

The proprietor of Policy Vineyards pours a glass of wine for me and says: “Up here, I have the time to actually listen to what people...

The Grand Bar, Tettuccio Spa, Montecatini Terme, Italy One of the greatest bars I’ve ever been in, certainly the biggest, was occupied at...

Quick, name the Wiener capital of the world! Unless you skipped the title of this piece, you should know the answer: Vienna! Wiener...

(Prior to my mother’s death, I had never considered her life as she must have experienced it. I viewed her only in the distorted context...

Rome was founded, legend suggests, by Romulus. He was reared, along with his twin brother, Remus, by a she-wolf. Something like that...

Alexander’s Bar, Hotel Grande Bretagne, Athens, Greece Whenever you see some international correspondent filing a story on the latest...

Front desk clerks at major Italian Hotels have seen everything. Nothing ever fazes them, unless you return your room key five years late....

I am sitting in the parents’ lounge of a local dance studio. A two-year-old boy is staring at me. Mucous streams from both his nostrils...

One of the most iconic visions in film history was the stunning transformation of the robot in Fritz Lang’s 1927 silent masterwork,...

The American Bar, Savoy Hotel, Strand, London I love hotel bars. They are stylish and over-priced, but who cares? You can drink there...