Margotlog

Margotlog: Memories Like Smoke
I haven't had many men "friends" in my life probably in part because during my growing up, it was so clear that the boys belonged to one tribe and the girls another. Times have changed. Now among a gaggle of women I trust and adore, there are several...

Margotlog: Proust and Colette: Nothing Gold Can Stay
Today with wind in golden leaves, and the sky a brilliant blue, it's as if loss is being transformed into immediate memory. We memorialize the gold even as it mounds the streets.
I pack up three bags of organic compost to recycle. As I finish my work at the compost site, a young man with a fist-full of smallish plastic bags walks past. I call out: "Do you have any large ones?" He is gone in an instant, and just as leaves fly...

Margotlog: Snow
Yes, it snowed yesterday in St. Paul, Minnesota. The air swirled with heavy globs and drifty flakes, making me think, for a moment, of recalcitrant students until it dawned on me that I was not teaching undergraduates any more--AND this stuff in the...

Margotlog: A Russian Among Us: Alexander Tylevich
In our own vast country, how many of us can make sense of Russia with its mix of peoples, its peculiar history of enormous change, and its extraordinary artistic heritage?  I have two recent claims: listening for maybe the fourth time to a wonderful...