Greetings from Newark!

Dear Friends:

I’m writing you from the fluorescent underbelly of Newark Liberty International Airport. My attempts to find an officious-looking picture of Corey Booker have failed. The international terminal has just erupted into cheers for United States football heroics just moments ago and unless I can hack this Boingo Hotspot, I will be sending this e-mail from the sweaty bosom of Tel Aviv.

As you know, few things fortify the inclination to talk about oneself more than going abroad. So by way of introduction, I must apologize to anyone whom I was unable to reach before leaving. No, I have not fallen into a bottomless hole the last six months (insert Brooklyn joke here), but I have been busy; moving meteorically through post-grad school life...or something like that.

Out of school, I’ve been publishing small pieces here and there, doing some editing, tending some bar, attending rodeos and soirees, moving boroughs, and now traveling to the Middle East again for some much needed field work. Owing (as always) to the largesse of philanthropists, I am currently in Israel on a fellowship. As a Shapiro Fellow, I’ll be attending seminars and working with professionals here in my field including Etgar Keret, a fiction writer and essayist, Gadi Taub, a public intellectual and contributor to The New Republic, and Nitzan Horovitz, a former journalist and current member of the Israeli Knesset. I’ve polished many an apple in advance of these encounters.

Following the fellowship, I will be doing some more work from Israel before heading to Istanbul and Dubai to tour around with my friend Hassan and write the epilogue of my book.

As always, you can keep up with me here. I will do my best to move beyond the semi-frequent/vaguely juvenile/rarely sober contributions as of late; I look forward to August 10th when I will rejoin the hemisphere to which I most belong, put a leash on the dog days, and spin some yarn with you about summer.

Best,
Adam