The Missing Friend

An attachment that will not die

Selling My Papers

A life’s work out the door

Confronting the Inevitable Subject

A few hundred words, and then I’m done

Remembering Abbas Kiarostami

The great filmmaker was cool, cosmopolitan, and lonely

On to Nanjing

In a land of paradox

Still in Shanghai

Getting personal—or not

Letter from Shanghai

The cityscape of the future—and the present

On Women Artists

Two recent films

The Dead of Summer

What to do on this sweltering day …

English Women Novelists

Catching up

Tennis, Anyone?

Obsession and regression

Memories of Jazz Nights

You needed stamina, but the payoff was great

Valentines Past

If only I’d had the nerve …

On the Death of Friendship

Nothing lasts forever

On Keeping a Blog

A Farewell

A Visit to Harvard

And a surprise encounter with Dr. Johnson

Remembering Cynthia Macdonald

Poet, teacher, opera singer, psychoanalyst, and friend

Marrying a Widow

Or, my spectral predecessor

Baldwin the Prophet vs. Baldwin the Writer

Can a film really capture the essence of both?

Listening to Dinah

The complexity of “Don’t Explain”

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