Author Archives: kurczy

The gun fired in Hopkinton at 10 a.m. I’d been up since 5:45 a.m. That’s because I, along with 24,000 other runners, had to show up at the Boston Common early that morning (I pedaled my bicycle there) and load … Continue reading →

If so, make sure your parents have a free room where you can crash, because it’s a low-paying and rocky road to financial security and editorial happiness (if either ever arrives). Rare is the journalism job that pays decent and … Continue reading →

Every year as we approach the holiday that celebrates the birth of God — the birth of God — I get a little depressed. Cause, you know, we killed him. How do you enjoy Christmas when you know the story ends pretty … Continue reading →

I ran my first marathon today, on a chilly fall morning in Hartford, Conn. The race started in front of the State Capitol, looped around the city and then through the surrounding East Windsor countryside, and finished back in Hartford beneath … Continue reading →

A cover article of this week’s New York Times Magazine explores developments over the past century in the field of linguistics (“Does Your Language Shape How You Think?”). Author Guy Deutscher writes: Some languages, like Matses in Peru, oblige their … Continue reading →

I felt like Dorothy in the Emerald City. The profile of a pointy-nosed man, bearing stunning resemblance to the great and powerful Wizard of Oz, stared at me from outside the immigration office as I waited to cross into Turkey. … Continue reading →

I can be a liability in social settings. I often fail to recognize social norms. That’s how Claire found herself in Iraq with me talking about breasts, lesbians, and Mormons to a conservative Muslim family of imams, doctors, and lawyers. … Continue reading →

This is the first country where we’ve hitchhiked, and we’ve hitchhiked several times while here—in the snow-capped mountains of north and in the dry hills of the south. Muslims and Christians alike often seem to be offering a taste of baklava, … Continue reading →

“Hey, do you want to be in a Bollywood movie?” asked a pot-bellied guy reclined on a motorcycle as we passed him on a street in downtown Mumbai. “I’m recruiting for extras who can work tonight.” The offer was enticing, … Continue reading →

We rode by Jeep into India’s Thar Desert, which borders Pakistan. We’d been promised an ultra-non-touristic camel trek, which hopefully meant that we wouldn’t be seeing other people or getting caught in camel traffic jams (which have apparently become a thing amid the growing tourism to the … Continue reading →

Jaipur, Udaipur, Jodhpur, Jaisalmer: the pink city, the white city, the blue city, the gold city. Jaipur offered detailed Islamic architecture; Udaipur, a pristine lakeside palace worthy of the backdrop to a James Bond film; Jodhpur, Rajasthan province’s premier citadel; … Continue reading →

Twenty thousand workers over 17 years hauled materials from all over Asia to build the Taj Mahal, a porcelain white memorial to Shah Jahan’s favorite wife in 1653. (There’s no mention of what he built for his other wives.) But the Taj isn’t as white as it used … Continue reading →

A stone walkway stretches hundreds of miles into the Himalayas, up steep cliffs and over narrow ridges. It’s the Nepali merchant’s version of the Great Wall, and over the past decades it’s become one of the most popular trekking routes … Continue reading →