Paris. December, 2005

“Why do Frenchmen eat such small breakfasts? Because one egg is un oeuf.” Maybe that groan-producing joke comes across better in the telling than in the reading. Maybe. But clearly one egg is not enough for some people, so happily this vendor at the Bastille market offers up fresh oeufs for the low, low price of 17 cents each. Cheaper by the dozen.

Assisi. October, 1980

My friend Andy is experiencing a calling to join the Franciscan order. A recent convert from some British branch of Protestantism, he’s off this month for a year in Maryland, working with the Franciscans, doing God-knows-what. I came across this photo of some other Franciscans today. Just one of dozens of shop windows filled with them here in the land of St. Francis himself. I felt no temptation to purchase any of these. But if I had known Andy back then (had he even been born?), maybe I would have.

Siena. October, 1980

The Piazza del Campo was bustling on this crisp autumn morning. Bright sunshine created dramatic shadows. And it seemed as if every grandmother in town was here, charges in hand. Or in strollers. Probably a daily event, a chance to catch up with others, enjoy the sunshine, the fresh air, scented this day with roasting chestnuts. The brickwork of the piazza was the inspiration for Boston’s City Hall plaza, which, to put it mildly, somehow lacks the warmth and humanity of its Tuscan predecessor. 

Florence. October, 1980

Here in the Boboli Gardens, I wonder how many other times this statue has been subject to similar photographic indignities. This was my first trip to Italy and I loved it. So much so that I returned there three more times in the 1980s. On one trip, I looked up a Florentine young man that a colleague at work had met when she’d visited the city. She gave me a baby gift for him, which I dutifully delivered, and he asked me what sights I intended to see. When I mentioned the paintings of Fra Angelico at the San Marco Museum, he suggested we meet there the following morning. Which we did. Unfortunately. I hadn’t realized that this man was a professional tour guide, and I was mortified as we walked the museum and he announced to me in a stentorian voice things like, “Notice the way the painter accentuates objects in nature...” and such. Other museum goers actually came up to him and asked him to lower his voice, which he declined to do. I couldn’t get out of there and away from him fast enough.

New York, NY. May, 2010

My late and beloved friend Bernard once told me that no matter where he went in the world, he always wound up eating noodles. China or Italy, Paris or Worcester, noodles. I don’t think BB ever had a chance to visit Momofuku, a really funky hole in the wall of a place that became so popular for its noodle soups that it moved two doors down, expanded and spiffed up considerably. I love it. Here’s what I usually have, the Momofuku ramen: roast pork, pork belly, scallions, rolled fish cake, noodles, broth, egg. Oh, and that dried seaweed, too. Bernard would have been right at home here.

San Diego, CA. January, 1990

I recently came across this photo of my late friend Eldon, whom I met when I went to graduate school at Georgetown (a friend of a friend, he worked at the university.) Thoroughly silly and irreverent, he became a good pal. I saw him last here in Southern California, where he was working for public television, and where he died a few months after my visit. How many wonderful friends did I lose to AIDS back then. Too many. 

Monaco. November, 2012

Among the many boats and private yachts docked in Monaco’s harbor, this one. What? Could the proud owner be a humor-challenged, henpecked husband trying to make a costly joke?