I was barely 16 when I started. Keen to earn my own money, I was thrilled when Miss Mary McGowan, head filing clerk of Eastman Dillon, hired me to be one of her bevy of girls — all Irish Catholics — except for me, the supposed Italian. Well, I didn’t…

The Ties that Bind — Daughters often adore their fathers. And frequently, when they are small, fathers are the indulgent ones. But in the end fathers represent patriarchal authority and wish to uphold that patriarchy. …

I am at Bachkovo, the 11th century Bulgarian monastery on the outskirts of Plovdiv. A friend has taken me there, someone I met by chance as I meet most people when I travel. Struck by the drama: the pools of light, the gestures, the icons, the incense, the bearded priest…

Eileen Manion and Barbara Confino talk about the state of justice in America — Eileen: Was Martin Luther King right when he said the arc is tending toward justice? He was correct in saying it’s long. Longer than my lifetime, for sure. Reading Just Mercy, I’m happy that there are people like Bryan Stevenson in the United States. …

A Neighborhood WalkAbout — with thanks to Justin Brannan and Bay Ridge Cares Like a fallen woman in an old time movie, Bay Ridge has a Past. In fact, it has several, each one superimposed over the last. Norwegians followed by Greeks, then Italians, now Arabs, each group passing through leaves tangible traces, their…

A short meditation on Pieter de Hooch’s The Card Players — Of all painting styles that of the Dutch Golden Age can legitimately be said to luxuriate in the celebration of ‘stuff’. More detailed, loving descriptions of worldly goods can hardly be found anywhere. …

A short meditation on a painting by van Ruisdael — Looking at this seemingly modest landscape by van Ruisdael, I am struck by how profoundly it embodies some of the most closely held values of this hard-working, God-fearing, modest people, and how much of those same values were conveyed by design. Its relatively symmetrical, center weighted composition emphasizes the stability…

The Forgotten Indians of Mexico — Photographs by Ximena Natera The Yuman people in Baja California carry 12,000 years of history; they have adapted and survived the Spanish colonization and the evangelization that followed, the post revolutionary development, and the construction of the “Mexican Nation Project”, built on the erasure of indigenous identity. They continue that struggle today.