The U.S. Postal Service just released a stamp that bursts with nostalgia: an homage to the beloved author and illustrator Tomie dePaola. It depicts his best-known character, Strega Nona, who earned him a Caldecott Medal in 1976, clutching her pasta pot and smiling at her peacock.
Two parts reverence, one part mischief. That’s how I’d sum up my grandma, whose name — Elinor Marcella Capecchi — captures her mix of poise and playfulness.
This morning, I recognized a shift in my journalism career that feels noteworthy. In the past two years, I’ve done more open-ended interviews than ever before.
I have loved photography for years. And I think I finally found my niche: snow photography. Every time it snows — which is frequently in Minnesota — I grab my phone, slip into my boots and start snapping.
From the beginning, there was music. It signaled the parade of life — comings and goings, mornings and evenings. The chirping of birds. The clatter of dishes. The croaking of frogs.
It started with news from Camp Wapo, the Bible camp I’d attended as a kid. The camp counselors in Amery, Wisconsin, enforce a strict no cellphone policy: Ditch your iPhone when you arrive, get it back when you leave.
Sometimes gold flakes surface along the periphery. The first or last picture in a photo shoot is the winner. The opening or final page of a book delivers the line that you hold to your heart. Or the wind-down of an interview — right after the formal conversation has wrapped up — produces a comment that stops you in your tracks.
During his down time at work, a Minnesota surgeon often browses the New Yorker in the hospital library. One day he spotted its famed cartoon caption contest — a caption-less cartoon that calls on readers to submit captions and then vote on their favorites, to be published in the following issue of the magazine.
