To get a good hamburger I seem to have to pay $10 these days. I don’t eat a lot of our national dish, but every so often I get a craving, and then I go in search of that special taste.   But the average burger is pretty pathetic— the meat isn’t high quality, and […]

While I was in sunny Reno enjoying the Worldcon, another autocratic regime crumbled into the desert sand.  I only found out when I turned on CNN Monday morning, but then regime c0llapse happened very, very quickly, within the previous 24 hours. An offensive by a largely Tamazight-speaking Berber force from the western highlands coincided with […]

  So here I am in this huge resort/casino thing, and to get anywhere you have to wander by hundreds of gaming tables.  I’ve been watching the gamblers, and none of them seem to be having a good time.   They’re all grimly working away at whatever it is they’re doing. Why is that?  Any idea?

  The writer Lawrence Schoen has been collecting stories from writers about their most fabulous meals. I couldn’t decide what my most fabulous meal was, but I did make an attempt to describe my most fabulous dining experience.  Which lasted for over ten years, in two countries. Oh my god, the gumbo . . .