Unraveling history's alternate timelines
I came into Maracanda at first light, when the city was still scraping sleep from its eyes and pretending, with great effort, to be a Greek foundation rather than a Central Asian market with colonnade...
Continue readingThe Moselle behaved itself today with almost suspicious discipline. It slid past Schengen in a green-brown ribbon, carrying reflections of clean flags, white wine houses, and a pleasure boat that seem...
Continue readingThe railway station looked like it had been bruised and then told to get back to work. Plywood covered the larger holes in the glass. Tape held the smaller panes in place with the confidence of a poor...
Continue readingTinmel 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 ...
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