New Year, Very Old Restaurants

Happy new year. January is usually a month of fresh starts and new chapters. But to tell you the truth, I’m not ready to face the future yet. I don’t know if it’s the short afternoons, the feeble sunshine, the chafing wind or just a creeping dread of what might be down the road. But…

Year of the Vegetable

Optimism abounds this time of year, the temporal fresh start a necessary reminder of our own potential for improvement, for clarity, for fulfillment. Last week, I encouraged readers to share their resolutions for the new year. I was moved by their buoyancy, particularly this note, from Suzanne: “I’m still forming my dreams and goals for…

A Fantasy That Comes With a Price Tag

What happened to fun? In the clinical white of the gallery, art can be forbidding, aggrieved, elite, academic. Shouldn’t it also, sometimes, be joyous? The collaborators behind Luna Luna thought so. This was the amusement park staged in Hamburg, Germany, in 1987, where nearly 30 professional artists including Basquiat, Hockney and Dalí designed the rides.…