Unraveling history's alternate timelines
Tinmel sits in the fold of the High Atlas as if the mountains had pinched it there to make a point. The slopes above the settlement are ochre in the late sun, violet where the shadows collect, and thr...
Continue readingAxum presents itself first by height. The stelae rise above the town like stone boasts made by men who expected the gods to be good readers. Their faces catch the morning sun in pale strips while the ...
Continue readingThe road into eastern Ghouta has a grammar I have learned to read without wanting to. Concrete is broken into the same gray crumbs in every version of this war. Rebar curls out of floors like burned w...
Continue readingSan Francisco has put on all its flags at once, which is a habit cities acquire when they fear a visitor may miss the point. Banners hang from hotel fronts and streetlamps. Uniforms move in blocks alo...
Continue readingMaastricht is wet, self-satisfied, and packed to the gutters with men in dark overcoats pretending that history is something one signs indoors. The Meuse slid past the quay this morning with the same ...
Continue readingWet October has a special talent for making everything look like it has already been handled by the state: stone darkened to the color of old tea, paint dulled by drizzle, and people moving with the p...
Continue readingThe canal smells like it always does in Northern Song cities: wet hemp rope, river mud, and the sour-sweet breath of fermented bean curd that has soaked into breakfast boards no matter how often they ...
Continue readingThe first thing I noticed was that Vienna in February has a particular kind of damp cold that sneaks in through wool. It isn’t dramatic. It’s not even rude. It just sits on your shoulders and patientl...
Continue readingSan Francisco should have had the honor today, and in most sensible arrangements of history it does: flags snapping in Pacific fog, hotel carpets suffering under diplomatic shoes, and the United Natio...
Continue readingBarcelona remains stubbornly itself under the shelling: tram wires over the Rambla, the Hotel Colón wrapped in slogans, walls pasted so thick with militia notices that the corners lift like old pastry...
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