RANCH HOUSE

My parents were obsessive about keeping our 1950s ranch house spotlessly clean, well repaired, and orderly. They seemed to be afraid of everything. But why? Sadly, we often don’t figure out the reasons for our parents’ craziness until they’re no...

“The Jewish Shah” Part II

Could the Shah of Iran have been Jewish? Maybe. What interests me even more is how family legends get started, what they mean to us, the amazing ways in which our family stories intersect with larger social movements and historical events, and how much we ever really...

The Jewish Shah

The third episode of my podcast MAYBE IT’S ME is now up and running. If you want to know whether my father’s crazy theory that the Shah of Iran was a secret Jew might be true, tune in! You can find MAYBE IT’S ME on Spotify, Apple podcasts,...

My new podcast is live!

News flash: I just started a podcast. It’s called MAYBE IT’S ME, which is the same title as my latest book. Call me an egotist, but I’m going to start by reading the essays in that collection. Then I’ll move on to newer work–essays about...

Maybe It’s Me: A new podcast

I just launched a brand new podcast called MAYBE IT’S ME, in which I share some of the darkly comic personal essays I’ve been writing over the past twenty or thirty years. You can find it on most of the sites where you find podcasts–Apple Podcasts,...

Life Drawing

I could barely draw a stick figure of a person or a dog, so I signed up for what I thought would be a beginner’s art class. Instead, I found myself in a room full of semi-experienced artists who were learning to draw actual nude people from life. Click here to...