It was that ghastliest of hours — 3 a.m. — bedtime a distant memory and daylight an eternity away. In the silence of his Salisbury, Conn., house, the interior designer Matthew Patrick Smyth jolted awake. Semiconscious, he felt himself in a strange state of turmoil, his thoughts a tangled skein of hopes and expectations, though…
Welcome. Daylight saving time ends this weekend, clocks “falling back” one hour to standard time on Sunday. Depending on where you live, this may mean earlier morning light and sunsets that strike in the afternoon. Larks and owls have been having it out over the utility of changing the clocks since the practice was instituted…
This obituary is part of a series about people who have died in the coronavirus pandemic. Read about others here. Enzo Mari, an irascible industrial designer, artist and polemicist who made simple, beautiful objects, including toys and traffic bollards, that delighted generations of Italians and design buffs all over the world, died on Oct. 19…
As Halloween draws near, spooky happenings and ghost stories abound. But for Allyson McOuat, a writer in Toronto, eerie visitations became a year-round phenomenon when she moved into a three-story Victorian house that had been owned by a couple who died tragically. Ms. McOuat tried to ignore the flickering lights and the empty rocking chair…
As a veteran television journalist, Sally-Ann Roberts knows how to tame an unsteady landscape and will it into submission. She survived 40 years reporting and anchoring the news for WWL-TV in New Orleans, covering 10 races for mayor and in 2005, Hurricane Katrina, a storm that submerged four-fifths of the city in water and left…
Priscilla Rattazzi sealed her reputation as a fashion photographer in the 1980s. By the end of that decade, Ms. Rattazzi, a Roman living in New York, had turned from fashion to portraiture, capturing the likenesses of Diana Vreeland, Loulou de la Falaise, Gianni Agnelli (her uncle), and other contemporaries with an unexpected combination of astringency…
More than three years after they met, Sean Christian Casey finally asked Elaine Gabrielle Joseph on a first date. The pair had been friends since they met during a Cotton Bowl watch party featuring Texas A&M and the University of Oklahoma in 2013. It was Ms. Joseph’s first night in town after moving to Washington.…
At my house, dinner is not a three-course meal every night. More likely, it’s a main course and a green salad. Sometimes, it is a one-pot main course, though not always. (I find that even when cooking a simple meal, at least two pots and pans are often involved.) And, quite frequently, dinner is meatless.…
Hello and welcome to Five Weeknight Dishes. If you ever cook to meet your mood, then next week could be quite a ride in the kitchen — a time for drink mixing and nacho making? Maybe you embrace noodles in uneasy times, or pasta, or stew? Are you an anxiety baker? When I sat down…
The huge cardboard box had been in my mother’s basement for decades until she said, “When are you going to move that crap to your house?” The box sat in my basement for a few more decades, until my wife said, “When are you going to clean out that crap?” Such language, but I got…