The Last Island of the Savages

… midnight on August 2, 1981, a Panamanian-registered freighter called the Primrose, which was traveling in heavy seas between Bangladesh and Australia with a cargo of poultry feed, ran aground on a coral reef in the Bay of Bengal. As dawn broke the next morning, the captain was probably relieved to see dry land just …

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Feels Like Coming Home

… distinguish its signature in the blend. Warm. Earthy. Ample. When I walk through a redwood grove, as I sometimes do in the mountains near my home, I feel as though I am walking through a 2,000-year-old church, arches reaching up into the heavens.
At the entrance of Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park …

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Tunneling to Freedom

As the weather warms and air-conditioned living rooms beckon, you might find yourself in the mood for patriotic films like Michael Curtiz’s Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942) or Preston Sturges’s Christmas in July (1940). To these, I would add The Great Escape (1963), a masterly movie directed by John Sturges (no relation to …

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Freedom Tales

… integrity were their birthright, characteristic of every American from the local farmer to George Washington. The overall message was clear: American children should treasure the ideals of freedom and equality they had inherited and pass them on.
But if American children were to be schooled in basic lessons of fairness, honesty, and justice, some awkward …

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Physics for the Feeble-Minded

Helgoland: Making Sense of the Quantum Revolution by Carlo Rovelli (Translated from the Italian by Erica Segre and Simon Carnell); Riverhead, 256 pp., $20
Carlo Rovelli’s newest book, Helgoland: Making Sense of the Quantum Revolution, is, the author writes, for readers “who are unfamiliar with quantum physics and are interested in trying to understand …

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Fedora, Trench Coat, Cigarette, and Gun

… m supposed to be,” even as he joins in the hunt for the legendary priceless black bird, which turns out to be a fake.
A wide-brimmed fedora and belted trench coat are as vital to Bogart as top hat, white tie, and tails are to Fred Astaire. A lighted cigarette dangles from Bogey’s …

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Washing Feet in Dolpo

… assemblage of theocracies and kingdoms.
We were headed for Upper Dolpo, which is “upper” by reason of both remoteness and altitude, most of it rising 12,000 feet or more above sea level, with many summits higher than 20,000 feet and crucial passes, which we must cross, touching 17,000. A quart of air …

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Ups and Downs

… dry, so we got in a run before visiting the market. Work before play, I was taught, but, though getting regular exercise is an obligation, it can feel like play while you’re at it. We ran up out of Arriondas into the low mountains and to the village of Fios, which was utterly enchanting …

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On Book

… why Berniece will never sell it. But Boy Willie finds his own voice and pushes on, an unstoppable agent for change. As the tension builds, the audience feels the pressure and sees no escape from a showdown.
 I don’t recall exactly when I read the play after seeing it performed, but the experience felt …

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The Baritone as Democrat

… Panizza, who as head of the company’s Italian wing triggered a powder-keg orchestral response the likes of which you cannot hear today. Cradling “Di Provenza”—the quintessential lyric baritone aria—in the Traviata performance, the seamless legato of Tibbett’s dark baritone and its freedom of phrase and of cadential punctuation are …

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