Dear Friend and Reader: Back in January 2003, during a Sun-Mercury conjunction, George Ryan, the outgoing governor of Illinois, commuted the death sentences of 167 people, clearing out death row. Illinois had an infamous reputation: by that day, 17 convicted murderers, all of them sentenced to death and having exhausted their appeals, had been exonerated of … Read more
Dear Friend and Reader: The other night I went to the movies with my cousin Dominick Vanacore, and we saw Ex Machina. One of my principles of film is that any movie worth seeing once is worth seeing twice, and Ex Machina qualifies. It’s the story of a programming genius (modeled after a search-engine billionaire who goes into … Read more
Dear Friend and Reader: When the dust settles on the wreck of Amtrak 188, and all the facts come out, I think the cause will turn out to be something simple: for example, the train’s driver not paying attention to the speed limit. Before I cast the chart for the crash, I had a feeling … Read more
Dear Friend and Reader: We all have that one area of our lives where we can’t seem to bridge our idealized version of things with actual reality. You know: like maybe you persistently believe you’ll be able to stretch time to fit all the things you want to do in a day, despite your unbroken … Read more
Dear Friend and Reader: This week if you dared to turn on the television, you had your choice of the Earthquake Channel or the Riot Channel. These are both tragic situations, deserving of news coverage. Yet, as usual, coverage translated to needless over-focus, coming with the sensation that the world is ending. That point was … Read more