ESSAY: Bites of the Big Apple

ESSAY: Bites of the Big Apple

Words & Photo by Tom Robotham One can’t paint New York as it is, but rather as it is felt. – Georgia O’Keeffe   Last month in this space, I wrote about what I call the resonance of place: the vibrations in your very soul that you feel at the mere...
ESSAY: On Television

ESSAY: On Television

  By Tom Robotham As an instructor of media studies, I spend a lot of time thinking about the ways in which various mass media affect our lives. I’m struck, especially, by the fact that today’s children can barely imagine what life was like before the advent of...
ESSAY: On Television

ESSAY: The Things I Carry

When my mom died, in 2015, I was faced with a decision—or rather, a multitude of decisions: what to retrieve from her house—my childhood home—and what to leave behind. Some decisions were relatively easy. I wished I could take her piano, which she taught me to play...
ESSAY: On Television

ESSAY: Powerless

  By Tom Robotham On the morning of September 30, when hurricane Ian started to make its presence felt in Norfolk, I was watching CNN’s coverage of the devastation in Florida. Since my oldest friend lives in Fort Myers—ground zero, as it turned out—I was worried...
ESSAY: On Television

ESSAY: In My Travels

By Tom Robotham This summer, for the first time in a long while, I haven’t ventured outside of Hampton Roads. There are a number of reasons for that, a tight budget chief among them. If all goes well, I’ll wander farther afield in 2023. Meanwhile, I’m moved to reflect...