à la carte spirit by ilona fried
ilona fried
Dispatch from Barcelona “Base Camp”
The films of Pedro Almodovar captivated me when I was younger, especially “Women on a Verge of a Nervous Breakdown”. The actresses he hired for that movie did not have traditional looks. One, whose name I can’t recall, had a slightly bent nose, a narrow face, and huge asymmetrical red lips. I remember being enthralled … Continue reading
Can I Find My Own Rhythm in Uber’s Algorithm?
In the last few days I have been Uber-ing around thanks to car trouble. It’s a stopgap measure until I decide what to do. To keep my travel expenses in check, I have tried out Uber’s most economical option, the Express Pool. A rider can choose to walk a few minutes to be picked up … Continue reading
We Are All Skeletons
One day, a day I am unlikely to live to see, humans will no longer care about race. Identity politics will have been relegated to the dustbin of history. Perhaps even identity as we’ve come to emphasize it – based on religion, sexuality, etc. – will be a relic of the past. One of the … Continue reading
Should We Dress as Megyn Kelly for Halloween?
I am shedding crocodile tears for Megyn Kelly, the outrageously overpaid TV personality who is losing her NBC perch thanks to her racist remarks. If you haven’t heard, she wondered aloud on air why it’s a problem for people to wear blackface for Halloween, as long as their outfit is honoring a character or an … Continue reading
When Ambition Renders Others, and the Truth, Invisible
The SCOTUS hearings dragged the country through a new low and in the process, dredged up memories from my hippocampus. What follows is not salacious or violent. A very long time ago I dated a smart and ambitious colleague. On one of our first dates, if not the very first, he bought tickets to a … Continue reading
à la carte spirit by ilona fried 
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