Mississippi Queen in Hamburg

Add to the list of things I do not expect to see floating on the Elbe River in Hamburg, Germany: a steamboat named Mississippi Queen. U.S. culture is found in the most unlikely places. —Lori Tripoli Seeking other unusual sites…

Soaring Street Art: Vancouver

I don’t know how far I’ve gone on my walk from my hotel to the Vancouver Convention Centre, through rush-hour traffic, through nervousness that I’m late for an interview, I’m late for conference registration, I’m not 100-percent entirely sure I’m…

Manhattan Hobbyhorse

I’m not sure that Jeff Koons’s Split-Rocker at Rockefeller Center in New York City works quite as well as Puppy did, but it’s fun to contemplate the more recent work over watermelon and tomato salad at Rock Center Café. I…

7/11/1779: Feeling Bedford Burn

It’s hard to envision bucolic Bedford, N.Y. as a war zone, but it was one during the Revolutionary War. British forces traveled up Guard Hill Road and then burned all but one of the houses in the village 235 years…

Watch with a Tourist’s Eyes

How many times do I visit Northern Westchester Hospital in Mount Kisco, N.Y. before noticing a plaque about George Washington’s meetup with Comte de Rochambeau, a French general sent to help with the Revolutionary War? I volunteer at the hospital…