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☆ When Travel Plans Go Awry
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-11 | by ( Melissa Kirsch | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

The weekend trip is, in theory, the perfect break. Two nights someplace else, just a small duffel bag and limited logistics standing between you and a reset. You might take a weekend trip for vacation or work or to see family, but the effect is the same. An old friend used to call these neither-here-nor-there realms the “zero world” for the way they feel unfastened from reality, parallel to daily life but separate. I was as cranky and impatient as the rest of my fellow travelers at each complication in our journeys, but also fascinated by the communities and customs and Cibo Express markets of the zero world.

Organizations: Cibo Express

☆ A 64-year-old 'peak boomer' worries his savings and Social Security won't be enough to retire: 'My biggest fear is finding myself at 75 standing at the door at Walmart.'
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-03 | by ( Allie Kelly | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Kirsch is hoping to start collecting Social Security checks in a couple of years, just before his 67th birthday. Related storiesFor many, Social Security won't be enough to fill the gaps. As of March 2024, the Social Security Administration said that its average monthly check sent to recipients is $1,774.83. And, if lawmakers don't intervene, the US Social Security fund is set to dry out by the late 2030s. "Start saving and do it as aggressively as you can," he said.

Persons: —, David Kirsch, Kirsch, Hill , New Hampshire —, he's, Kirsch isn't, didn't Organizations: Service, He's, Business, Walmart, Survey, Income, Social, Social Security Administration, US Social Security Locations: Caribbean, South America, Hill , New Hampshire

☆ The Gen Z Crossword Era
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-13 | by ( Melissa Kirsch | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

My 20-year-old niece, Emma, texted the other day to tell me she’s addicted to The Times’s game Connections; she and her friends play every day, along with the Mini and Strands. “The people who make the games need to make more fun games,” she declared. I don’t mind her treating me as her personal on-demand suggestion box for The New York Times; she’s my personal on-demand focus group for Gen Z. She’s used to my asking her about Snapchat etiquette, or which athleisure brands are cool, or if it’s true that her generation is grossed out by feet. I’d read about how younger people are getting into puzzles, but this was the first time my Gen Z rep had volunteered a report from the field. I, too, love Connections, but my deepest and most abiding puzzle romance is with The Times’s crossword.

Persons: Emma, texted, ”, I’d Organizations: The New York Times

☆ Drake Bell believes his abuser Brian Peck 'fooled' stars including James Marden into defending him, and isn't angry at them
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-02 | by ( Eammon Jacobs | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Drake Bell said he believes Brian Peck fooled stars into defending him after he was accused of abuse. During the trial, actors including James Marsden wrote letters of support for Peck. AdvertisementDrake Bell said he believes ex-dialogue coach Brian Peck "fooled" stars into writing him letters of support after he was charged with sexually abusing the former Nickelodeon child actor in 2003. On the third and fourth episodes of Investigation Discovery's documentary "Quiet on Set," Bell spoke publicly for the first time about being sexually abused by Peck when he was 15. Some 41 people who knew Peck, including friends and family, wrote letters of support for the dialogue coach before he was sentenced.

Persons: Drake Bell, Brian Peck, James Marsden, Peck, —, Bell, Drake, Josh, Zoey, Taran Killam, Brian, Amanda Kirsch, it's, I've, Maxine, Peck haven't, Marsden, Sarah Fraser, hasn't, Killam Organizations: Bell, Service, Nickelodeon, Maxine Productions, Sony Pictures, Business Locations: Los Angeles

☆ In Praise of Tiny Triumphs
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-30 | by ( Melissa Kirsch | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Spring arrives, and with it, a semi-annoying, semi-invigorating mandate to spring clean — to clear out spaces both physical and psychological. Because I am constantly looking for reasons to get rid of old things, old ways of thinking and being that have outstayed their usefulness, I’m drawn to spring cleaning as an annual rite. But because I am also constantly reckoning with a pesky sense of dread regarding obligations of any size, I also find the concept of spring cleaning over-ambitious and intimidating. and panic (it’s that time of year and, once again, I have waited too long to call the accountant!). Then she mentioned how accomplished she felt after sewing a button on a shirt to ready it for the sale.

Persons: I’m

☆ The Music That Made Us
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-23 | by ( Melissa Kirsch | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Adam rises from his desk and goes to the next room, where he drags a bin of memories out from under the bed. “Johnny Come Home” is one of those songs that evokes the ’80s so acutely for me that I was already experiencing flashbacks to my own adolescence before Adam began to excavate his. I hear it and I’m returned to my childhood bedroom: the boombox with dual tape players, pink wall-to-wall carpet, a diary with a lock. I hadn’t listened to Fine Young Cannibals in many years, but returning to their self-titled album now, I was curious to see if it would arouse the same emotions (anticipation mixed with melancholy). What happens when we re-encounter them later, when we’ve certainly changed, and perhaps they have too?

Persons: Andrew Haigh’s, Adam, Andrew Scott, Johnny Come, ”, We’re, Johnny, I’m, hadn’t, Fine, we’ve Organizations: Fine Locations: Irish

☆ In Search of Spring
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-16 | by ( Melissa Kirsch | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

When does spring begin? For some, it’s the second Sunday in March, when we turn our clocks forward by an hour in the United States. It’s only a three-hour flight from La Guardia (rainy, cold) to West Palm Beach (sunny, 81 degrees, slight breeze), and from there an hour’s drive to Clover Park in Port St. Lucie, the spring training home of the New York Mets. Here in Port St. Lucie on a Tuesday afternoon, weeks before the season’s official start, cheery fans were decked out in team merch, drinking Modelo Especial tallboys and snacking on peanuts, reeling off stats, heckling the players. Here, spring was already happening.

Persons: they’ve, Lucie Organizations: Hemisphere, La Guardia, Palm, Clover, New York Mets, Yankees, Yorker, Modelo Especial Locations: United States, La, Port St, New York

☆ Cramming for the Oscars
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-09 | by ( Melissa Kirsch | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

I’m in competition with no one but myself in trying to view all the major-category nominees for the Oscars before the ceremony tomorrow night. I’m doing well this year, probably because the slate is fairly small: Most of the films with acting and screenplay nominations are also contenders for best picture. The problem with cramming for the Oscars, as I do every year to varying degrees of success, is that it renders one cinematically wearied. If I fail to squeeze in a nominated film before the ceremony, I’ll probably never see that film at all. I love the Oscars, with all their pageantry and pomposity.

Persons: I’ll, Mark Harris, ”, Harris, ’, “ we’d Organizations: Hollywood

☆ An HGTV Star’s Party Inspires a Question: What Makes a Home?
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-21 | by ( Melissa Kirsch | Dolly Faibyshev | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

What makes a house a home? On Tuesday night, that question floated in the delicately candle-scented air of a three-story penthouse apartment on lower Fifth Avenue in Manhattan where the interior designer Jeremiah Brent lives with his husband and fellow designer, Nate Berkus, and their two children. An intimate gathering of about 30 guests had assembled to celebrate the publication of Mr. Brent’s first book, “The Space That Keeps You,” a collection of photos and stories of interesting people and their enviable houses. For Mr. Brent, who along with Mr. Berkus is a mainstay on HGTV with shows like “The Nate & Jeremiah Home Project,” a home is a “weird blend of space and place.”

Persons: Jeremiah Brent, Nate Berkus, Brent’s, Brent, Berkus, Nate, ” Organizations: HGTV, Jeremiah Locations: Manhattan

☆ Exploring the Backyard
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-03 | by ( Melissa Kirsch | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

For more than 20 years, the British adventurer Alastair Humphreys roamed the planet. He rowed across the Atlantic, traversed India on foot, cycled around the world. Each hyper-detailed map includes not just roads but footpaths, vegetation and variations in terrain. Humphreys commits to deeply exploring one small segment of his map per week, to getting intimate with his immediate environment, by walking or biking every millimeter. “I wanted it to be serendipitous, not governed by my preferences,” he writes.

Persons: Alastair Humphreys, ”, Humphreys, I’ve, “ Organizations: Ordnance Survey, U.S . Geological Survey Locations: British, India, U.S

☆ The Debate Over January
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-20 | by ( Melissa Kirsch | More About Melissa Kirsch | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

Winter friends — those who, contrary to all hedonic and circadian sense, love dark days and black ice — have been forwarding the story to me, triumphant, as if once and for all it’s been settled, the pointless, perennial battle of the seasons. Everyone just wants to feel better, I get it, but resisting their campaign is a twisted part of coping with the season. I spent the week exchanging snapshots with friends in Mississippi, their mutt cavorting in the snow-covered yard (look how cozy! Another friend asked if I didn’t find the cold and snowfall moody and melancholy, in a good way. It’s a case that the poets have been making for eons: “Barren winter, with his wrathful nipping cold,” Shakespeare wrote.

Persons: Steven Kurutz’s, mutt cavorting, ”, Stu, Roz Chast’s, Shakespeare, what’s Locations: Mississippi, New

☆ US Army flight tested the seeker that will help turn its newest missile into a ship-killer
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-17 | by ( Jake Epstein | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

The US Army recently obtained its new Precision Strike Missile (PrSM), a surface-to-surface weapon. Earlier this month, the Army revealed it made progress on a new variant of the ballistic missile. AdvertisementThe US Army has flight tested the seeker that will allow its newest missile to hunt down warships, among other targets. Last month, the Army received its first delivery of the next-generation Precision Strike Missile (PrSM), a short-range, surface-to-surface ballistic missile. On Tuesday, for example, US forces struck and destroyed four anti-ship ballistic missiles that the Houthis were preparing to launch.

Persons: —, Lockheed Martin, James Kirsch, AvMC, DEVCOM AvMC, Biden, Gerald R, Technology Doug Bush Organizations: US Army, Strike, Army, Service, MGM, Tactical Missile Systems, Lockheed, Ship, Command's Aviation, Missile Center, Ford, High, Artillery Rocket Systems, Systems, Acquisition, Logistics, Technology Locations: Ukraine, Yemen, Iran, China, Beijing

☆ Behind the Book Review’s Best Books List
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-25 | by ( Melissa Kirsch | More About Melissa Kirsch | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Some people come with prepared speeches in support of the book they’re nominating. By the conclusion of each meeting, it’s clear which books are garnering support and which are losing steam. “There’s sometimes an assumption that we are trying to send a statement with the list,” Gilbert said. But both he and Tina were adamant that the list is not political, and the only statement they’re making is “these are the best books of the year and you should read them.”“We’re not engineering the list in any way,” Tina clarified. “We’re not saying, ‘Oh, gosh, at least three of the books on the fiction list need to be by women.’”

Persons: ” Gilbert, “, Gilbert, Tina, ” “, “ We’re, ’

☆ Sally Darr, Formidable Chef of ’80s-Era French Bistro, Dies at 100
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-16 | by ( Penelope Green | More About Penelope Green | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Sally Darr, the exacting chef and owner of La Tulipe, a tiny 1980s-era French bistro in downtown Manhattan renowned for its exquisite yet homey French cooking — and often agonizing delays — resulting from her infamous perfectionism, died on Nov. 7 at her home in the West Village. Desserts were Ms. Darr’s forte: She was a skilled pastry chef, and her apricot souffle, shaped like a minaret and served table-side with a dollop of whipped cream flavored with kirsch, was a best seller. Though she had spent more than a decade as a recipe tester for Gourmet magazine and Time-Life books, Ms. Darr had zero restaurant experience when she opened La Tulipe. Neither did her husband and business partner, John Darr, a Congregationalist minister and peace activist turned school principal. Yet Ms. Darr never doubted she would win those stars.

Persons: Sally Darr, La, Dorothy Darr, Tulipe, Darr, Mimi Sheraton, Darr’s zucchini fritters, kirsch, John Darr Organizations: The New York Times, Gourmet Locations: Manhattan, West

☆ China-linked ETFs draw bullish options bets ahead of Biden-Xi meet
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-15 | by ( Saqib Iqbal Ahmed | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

Traders work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, U.S., November 15, 2023. Other large China-focused ETFs, including the iShares MSCI China ETF (MCHI.O), KraneShares CSI China Internet ETF (KWEB.P), also showed upbeat options activity, according to Trade Alert data. "It certainly seems that there is generally bullish positioning ahead of the meeting," said Steve Sosnick, chief strategist at Interactive Brokers, noting that the positions had been built up over several days. Reuters GraphicsInvestors' nascent enthusiasm for Chinese stocks is at odds with how these ETF's have performed this year. Daniel Kirsch, head of options at Piper Sandler, said recent bullish options flows into KWEB may be to do with a combination of enthusiasm ahead of the Biden-Xi meeting as well as results from Chinese e-commerce companies JD.com and Alibaba .

Persons: Brendan McDermid, Joe Biden's, Xi Jinping, Steve Sosnick, Biden, Xi, Sosnick, Daniel Kirsch, Piper Sandler, JD.com, Kirsch, Saqib Iqbal Ahmed, Suzanne McGee, Ira Iosebashvili, Jonathan Oatis Organizations: New York Stock Exchange, REUTERS, U.S, iShares, KraneShares CSI China Internet, Interactive, Federal, Economic Cooperation, Reuters Graphics Investors, Research, Biden, Thomson Locations: New York City, U.S, China, KraneShares, San Francisco, Asia

[1/5] A trader reacts as a screen displays the Fed rate announcement on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, U.S., July 26, 2023. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid/File Photo Acquire Licensing RightsNEW YORK, Nov 14 (Reuters) - A benign U.S. inflation report is bolstering hopes that the Federal Reserve can bring down consumer prices without hurting the economy, a so-called Goldilocks environment that investors believe will benefit stocks and bonds. This does feel like a Goldilocks moment for the entire market.”The data fueled a powerful rally in stocks and bonds. The S&P 500 (.SPX) was up about 2% on the day, on track for its biggest one-day rise since January. Still, some investors believed it was too early to call a victory in the fight against inflation.

Persons: Brendan McDermid, Eric Kuby, bearish, “, Daniel Kirsch, Piper Sandler, Thomas Hayes, ”, Brian Rose, Jamie Cox, Lewis Krauskopf, Saqib Iqbal Ahmed, Davide Barbuscia, Ankika Biswas, Ira Iosebashvili, Nick Zieminski Organizations: New York Stock Exchange, REUTERS, Federal Reserve, North Star Investment Management Corp, Thomson Reuters, BofA's Global, Fed, Fund, UBS Global Wealth Management, Harris Financial, Thomson Locations: New York City, U.S, Thomson Reuters United States, New York, Bengaluru

☆ Our Merch, Ourselves
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-11 | by ( Melissa Kirsch | More About Melissa Kirsch | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +3 min

Why do we buy merch, or shy away from it? What does the merch you wear say about who you are, what you believe in? Carrying the bag in your own city seemed too boosterish, too earnest for a New Yorker, whereas outside the city, the local merch telegraphs your hometown pride and N.Y.C. Once you leave the place, the merch becomes a souvenir, a nostalgic keepsake. Debating the laws of merch is a diversion, an amusing exercise in questioning our own pieties.

Persons: Spaeny, “ Priscilla, ”, It’s, Hannah, Priscilla, Priscilla Presley, Priscilla ”, Sofia Coppola, ” “, it’s, leashes, I’d, Justin Bieber Organizations: tote, telegraphs, Los Angeles Dodgers, American Locations: rhinestones, New York, Brooklyn, New, L.A

☆ Campus Radicals and Leftist Groups Have Embraced the Idea of ‘Settler Colonialism’
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-26 | by ( Adam Kirsch | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +1 min

After the Hamas attack that killed more than 1,300 Israelis on Oct. 7, many Americans were indignant to see academic and left-wing organizations issuing statements that excused or implicitly endorsed the massacre. Such sentiments are not surprising, however, to anyone who follows the way Israel and Palestine have long been discussed in those quarters. An idea widely accepted in a small ideological community has now been exposed to the view of the general public, revealing the deep estrangement between them. The idea in this case is “settler colonialism,” a term that appears often in the pro-Hamas statements collected by the Anti-Defamation League. Mondoweiss, an anti-Israel online publication, has called the Hamas attack “part of the Palestinians’ century-long struggle for liberation” from “Zionist/Israeli settler colonialism.”

Persons: Mondoweiss, ” Organizations: Defamation, Democratic Socialists of America, “ Zionist Locations: Israel, Palestine

☆ Campus Radicals and Leftist Groups Have Embraced the Deadly Idea of ‘Settler Colonialism’
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-26 | by ( Adam Kirsch | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +1 min

Persons: Mondoweiss, ” Organizations: Defamation, Democratic Socialists of America, “ Zionist Locations: Israel, Palestine

☆ Running for Our Lives
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-21 | by ( Melissa Kirsch | More About Melissa Kirsch | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

The obvious answer is that we run to be healthy, to improve our cardiovascular systems and our moods, to become fitter and stronger. But sometimes it feels like the real reason that I run is to get better at running. But running in particular seems intricately linked to questions of endurance, of grit and commitment and even moral rectitude. “Running is more than a sport or a form of exercise, a passion or a pastime. I started running because I wanted to reclaim the practice from my elementary school days, when the Presidential Fitness Test — and its crowning glory, the mile run — was accepted as a meaningful measure of a child’s worth.

Persons: We’ve, it’s Organizations: American College of Cardiology

☆ The National Book Awards Longlist
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-16 | by ( Melissa Kirsch | More About Melissa Kirsch | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

One of the best birthday gifts I’ve ever received was a stack of four or five books, all published the year I was born. I hadn’t read John le Carré’s “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy,” but now I felt a connection to it; we’d both come into being at roughly the same time. The all-you-can-read buffet of books available begs a reader, especially a slow reader like me, to develop a strategy. This week, the National Book Foundation announced the longlist for the 2023 National Book Awards, presenting a crop of books on which a hungry reader could happily feast from now through the end of the year. (“Chain-Gang All-Stars,” by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah and “Fire Weather,” by John Vaillant just moved to the top of my list.)

Persons: I’ve, John le Carré’s, ”, Ursula K, Le Guin, I’m, ’, Nana Kwame Adjei, John Vaillant Organizations: Book Foundation

☆ Your Fall Movie Preview
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-09 | by ( Melissa Kirsch | More About Melissa Kirsch | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Searching for something to look forward to in the last light of summer, the fall movie schedule beckons. When the sun sets too early, what better refuge than the movies, where Annette Bening is playing Diana Nyad (October), Colman Domingo plays Bayard Rustin (November) and Timothée Chalamet is Willy Wonka (December)? Some studios pushed their big theatrical releases to 2024 while the ongoing actors’ strike prevents stars from promoting films. Peter Dinklage, Anne Hathaway and Marisa Tomei star in Rebecca Miller’s romantic comedy “She Came to Me,” about a composer who’s having trouble composing. That one’s set in my neighborhood, so I’m presold on it.

Persons: Annette Bening, Diana Nyad, Colman Domingo, Bayard Rustin, Chalamet, Willy Wonka, I’m, “ Dicks, ”, Nathan Lane, Megan Mullally, Larry Charles, Kristen Roupenian’s, Nicholas Braun, Peter Dinklage, Anne Hathaway, Marisa Tomei, Rebecca Miller’s, who’s

☆ Summer’s Not Over Yet
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-02 | by ( Melissa Kirsch | More About Melissa Kirsch | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

This weekend, while you’re working the grill or attending a parade or sitting in traffic, conversation will turn, inevitably, to the end of summer. Labor Day, nominally a holiday celebrating the industriousness of the American worker, also serves to remind the worker that they haven’t been quite as industrious as they might have been these past three months. In his eulogy for summer’s lazy days in The Times today, my colleague Stephen Kurutz mourns the vestiges of truly unmonitored working from home that this fall seems to augur: “Will we forget the small pleasure of sitting on a porch and looking at the yard?” he writes. Of trading the daily commute for an aimless drive?”Why must there be such an austere demarcation between before Labor Day and after, between summer and not-summer, between enjoying our lives and enduring them? Why have we so internalized the back-to-school dread of childhood that it’s become a permanent feature of adulthood?

Persons: You’ll, Stephen Kurutz, it’s Organizations: Labor, The Times Locations: The

☆ Can Errands Be Enjoyable Exercise?
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-26 | by ( Melissa Kirsch | More About Melissa Kirsch | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

We’re on again off again, depending on the latest study (10,000? When I’ve missed a run or skipped leg day, I’m much more attentive to my step count. Before you remind me that I do not need any more stuff, I will tell you I was there really just out of curiosity. Biking 11 miles to and from Costco with a trailer of groceries, as Andrew Leonard has been doing since his car broke down three years ago? Leonard has found errand-running to be his ideal form of exercise: a healthy routine that’s intrinsically motivated by his love of cycling and his love of getting things done.

Persons: I’ve, it’s, I’d, Andrew Leonard, Leonard Organizations: Costco Locations: New York City

☆ The Post-Vacation Clarity
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-19 | by ( Melissa Kirsch | More About Melissa Kirsch | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

If you’re lucky, you might get out of your home and your head, take some time off and away. ), as I was recently, with that post-vacation clarity, whereby the excesses of one’s everyday life seem gaudy, nearly intolerable. A week spent living out of a suitcase and the concept of owning more than one sweatshirt seems silly. It’s not the stuff itself — having enough stuff is a privilege — but the complications that accompany the stuff. You spend time in a new environment, on a different schedule, maybe eating different things, trying on other ways of living.

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