I've given up Catholicism for Lent. Problem solved.

This week’s #wordlesentence: Cowboy Character Actor Edition! “Ain’t no mogul but a mooch; he hoist his rowdy squad up here and roost in the busted barn, like moss that bloom acrost a cow skull.” 2/19: HOIST 2/18: MOGUL 2/17: SQUAD 2/16: ROOST 2/15: SKULL 2/14: BLOOM 2/13: MOOCH

Excellent review of an ugly but very urgent show. If you don't mind your blood running cold by shock jocks urging violence then being jolted by Nirvana's "Rape Me" seconds later, check it out. One is mentally translating the show to an American podcast recording in (looking at watch)...

Overhearing the chatter of people in their 20s and 30s while navigating crowded, snow-hedged sidewalks in the West Village on a Saturday afternoon is not conducive to wanting to stay in the city.

this week's #wordlesententence: PETA Avenger Edition! “A cello-sad bleat caused rage to surge and hammer like a gavel on her vegan heart, as she beheld a bloody scene that would embed in her brain for years.” 2/12: SURGE 2/11: VEGAN 2/10: SCENE 2/9: CELLO 2/8: EMBED 2/7: BLEAT 2/6: GAVEL

A European premiere tonight! www.instagram.com/p/DUfUwKnDcA...

This week’s #wordlesentence: Columbo Edition “Allot me one jumbo cigar to swoop in my mouth, and chide me not if said stogie stays unlit as I weigh and puzzle out spiny mysteries.” 2/5: SWOOP 2/4: CHIDE 2/4: WEIGH 2/4: CIGAR 2/4: SPINY 1/31: ALLOT 1/30: JUMBO

laundry machines in Europe are amazing. Small load takes 2 hours and comes out feeling dirtier than when it went in!

Check out the exuberant, subject-to-style match of Rhoda Feng's bravura review of ERS's "tasting menu" of Ulysses. Such flowing wit, intertextual frisking between page and her POV of stage & audience. Am gobbling, digesting... (tho not as long as scholars Joyce...) www.4columns.org/feng-rhoda/u...

This week's #wordlesentence: Aristocrat Comeuppance Edition “The evening light was dusky as the baron, a notoriously cruel, flaky freak, was seen to strut off the edge of a high cliff.” 1/29: FLAKY 1/28: CRUEL 1/27: DUSKY 1/26: FREAK 1/25: STRUT 1/24: CLIFF 1/23: BARON

I’m ok. I’m a survivor so this small agitator isn’t going to intimidate me from doing my work. I don’t let bullies win. Grateful to my incredible constituents who rallied behind me. Minnesota strong.

New work by Ella Baron, political cartoonist at @theguardian.com

New #wordlesentence “In the clink the racer paced a filthy cell, careful not to sully his waxen jumpsuit festooned in logos, now and then glancing out a one-cubic-foot window: bushes of fiery red sumac.” 1/22: CLINK 1/21: CUBIC 1/20: SULLY 1/19: WAXEN 1/18: SUMAC 1/17: FIERY 1/16: RACER

Human suffering: The inexhaustible natural resource from which one can make quite a pretty penny.

Wouldn't be #Capricorn season without HBD to the most sinister of GOATs....

so end of this month I'm going to Germany (first time!) to see an opera I co-wrote produced in a lovely medieval town. Hoping they will let me in, and I will want to be let out! www.theaterregensburg.de/produktionen...

first NYT review by the redoubtable @helenshaw.bsky.social is up, displaying her usual x-ray vision for dramaturgical slippage and minute stage business, peppered with apt and spicy word choices: feint, gait, valence, puffery. Lucky her editor; lucky her readers. www.nytimes.com/2026/01/16/t...

New #wordlesentence: Courtroom Drama Edition! “Eight minutes until the trial I was manic to avoid; the gumbo I gulped for lunch sluiced up the chasm of my throat and I wished myself tiny as a quark.” 1/15: CHASM 1/14: AVOID 1/13: GUMBO 1/12: TRIAL 1/11: QUARK 1/10: MANIC 1/9: EIGHT

"The collapse of the unseeable into the visible is the downfall arc powering Tracy Letts’s 1996 Bug, a compact horror romance making its Broadway debut in a vivid but lopsided production at Manhattan Theatre Club." 4columns.org/cote-david/bug

Being a Christian conservative is truly a win-win: use your faith to justify manifold bigotries and supporting a fascist, then suffer no consequences in a nonexistent afterlife.

In this light his face looks like a dirty copper face plate about to slip and fall off.

This week's #wordlesentence: Banghra Cowboy Edition! “A raga blast from the sitar-shredding dude on the pecan-colored filly gave the posse proof of his oomph.” 1/8: BLAST 1/7: PECAN 1/6: OOMPH 1/5: FILLY 1/4: POSSE 1/3: SITAR 1/2: PROOF

Capricorn: Your desire to travel may be awakened by a pack of pale wolves that surround your apartment complex. Now’s the time to finally check if that door in the laundry room connects to the old mineshaft. Hurry!!

This week's #wordlesentence “A diptych of an obscure fable—a batch of rotting fruit, a siren serenading a ship making speed through waves—was the only extraneous décor the abbot kept in his office.” 1/1/2026: FABLE 12/31: SIREN 12/30: DECOR 12/29: FRUIT 12/28: ABBOT 12/27: BATCH 12/26: SPEED

A New Year's Toast from Patricia Highsmith (and me) 🥂🥂

He was given free rein to reign freely and freely rain rained that gray day and reigned over my going away, washing away any sovereign sway about my departure today sans delay.

new #wordlesentence! “Spicy tendrils of myrrh incense rose as I stared hard into the conch, my eye following a glint down its white, calcium spool, a prism or quilt of light, particolored and spinning.” 12/25: PRISM 12/24: SPOOL 12/23: GLINT 12/22: CONCH 12/21: QUILT 12/20: WHITE 12/19: MYRRH

"Okay, newsroom! Let's make sure we represent both sides when the governments of two nations collude to commit flagrant civil rights and human rights abuses!"

If you want to see the segment axed by Little Miss Goebbels (a.k.a. Bari Weiss)

My last review before the year goes "poof." A rather unfortunate new Tartuffe. observer.com/2025/12/revi...

New #wordlesentence: British Sport Edition! “Built like a truck but a dodgy miser with the rugby ball, Clive would segue from locker room to grass pitch, warming up with a violent leg swing.” 12/18: RUGBY 12/17: GRASS 12/16: SEGUE 12/15: DODGY 12/14: SWING 12/13: MISER 12/12: TRUCK

Honored to be one of MANY theater folks asked to weigh in. My suggested plays are the ones that are 100% correct and impeccably wise, well-judged, exquisitely curated, etc.

New #wordlesentence: Socially Awkward Holiday Party Edition! “Guess who’s among the festive snide, draining a postprandial flute of fizz and wishing he could erase the gravy stain on his bulging waist.” 12/11: GUESS 12/10: ERASE 12/9: SNIDE 12/8: GRAVY 12/7: FLUTE 12/6: WAIST 12/5: AMONG

Stealworkers

speaking as a journalist who does *not* report non-arts news: I wish the media would not blare "Why This..." or "How This..." headlines before they can accurately report WHAT tf is happening in the first place.

Reading Dorothy Parker on her theater beat more than a century ago, you reflect… maybe things ain’t quite so bad today?

Back to reviewing after a couple months of residencies hither and yon: observer.com/2025/12/revi...

Normalize characters in their 20s not shoveling slang like parrots

Recently awarded a NYSCA grant through an application made with Hubbard Hall in Cambridge, New York upstate. With composer Alejandro Zuleta, I'm writing an oratorio called The Lemon Grove Incident, based on an actual school segregation court case in California in 1931. Excited to get working!

This week's #wordlesentence. Maternity & Floriculture Edition! “A gruff mother made haste one muggy morn past a tulip field shriveled from mineral leach, her baby with colic and prickly as a patch of cacti.” 12/4: TULIP 12/3: HASTE 12/2: CACTI 12/1: LEACH 11/30: MUGGY 11/29: GRUFF 11/28: COLIC

My friend @davidcote.bsky.social introduced me to Tom Stoppard during intermission of the original run of the Harry Potter Cursed Child magic show: I was starstruck and shy and Stoppard seemed charmed and baffled by the expensive spectacle he had just seen www.bbc.com/news/article...

New #wordlesentence Evil Landlord! “Plead no more, I loathe each supplicant vowel; to remain in this dismal hovel, remit one thick bunny ready for the pot, and turn that dough into something I might butter.” 11/27: REMIT 11/26: HOVEL 11/25: PLEAD 11/24: DOUGH 11/23: BUNNY 11/22: THICK 11/21: VOWEL

A friend of mine is a professional driver for celebrities. He’s driven movie stars, pop stars, and politicians. I tell him he must be proud of his famous clients. He shrugged. “What do I have to chauffeur it?”

As we pass Through arrangements of shadows Toward the verticals of trees Forever.

The A train is absolute dog shit

New #wordlesentence: Alt-Arthurian Legend Edition! “Wield well the sword, Sir Kevin; clamp it in hand as you clung to nursery toys, and I opine you shall speed any knave to his maker in a lurid grave.” 11/20: GRAVE 11/19: MAKER 11/18: OPINE 11/17: CLAMP 11/16: WIELD 11/15: CLUNG 11/14: LURID

You're invited to play a puzzle created by David. www.nytimes.com/games/create...

You're invited to play a puzzle created by David. www.nytimes.com/games/create...

New #wordlesentence Las Vegas Swindle Edition! “If I play the deuce, a fugue of peril may arise, bringing a tabby-cat scarlet tinge to my cheeks, as I pray casino security don’t spy the gizmo stuck in my ear.” 11/13: TINGE 11/12: DEUCE 11/11: GIZMO 11/10: TABBY 11/9: FUGUE 11/8: ARISE 11/7: PERIL