Author: Nathan Schiller
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My blog has a name: Angles in America
Only twice, in the two years since I started this blog, have I been unable to write my monthly post: during the George Floyd protests, and during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. History in real-time is tragic, and the internet has plenty of arenas for reacting. A diaristic think piece on a personal blog felt frivolous. Law enforcement…
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When I stopped watching the Super Bowl
Thirty-five years ago, Eric Dickerson was an exquisite and record-setting NFL running back. Since then, he has crusaded against the NFL, threatening to boycott the Hall of Fame induction ceremony unless he and his fellow inductees receive lifetime healthcare and reminding everyone that most players hate the league. None of which is scandalous. Dickerson loves football and acknowledges that being an…
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Parks of the Bronx: Riverdale photo essay
One of the last areas I expect anyone to notice, when they look at a map of New York City, is the vertical sliver of green in the northwest corner of the Bronx. But that’s where Riverdale Park sits, tucked between train tracks along the Hudson River and a two-lane asphalt forest road with city speed limits. Riverdale Park…
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2021 year-in-review: Another year we basically have to remember but may end up forgetting anyway
Before last year, whenever I thought of 1918, I thought of World War I. Mass bloodshed is rather memorable, even if it wasn’t your time. I always knew of the Spanish flu, but I was never too interested in life during a plague. And now that we are living through our own, I am more…
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Let’s get uncomfortable: A one-year-old running podcast
Last week, Let’s Get Uncomfortable, the running podcast I host with Inés Bebea and Jaime Chien, posted its twenty-fifth episode, the first of season two. Mitchell Silver: People’s Commissioner Our season one finale featured Mitchell Silver, who recently finished a seven-year tenure as New York City Parks Commissioner. Parks make all cities habitable, but they transcend ones like New York. There is a…
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Harriman State Park: Trail runner’s paradise an hour north of New York City
Harriman State Park, Region 3 of the Lower Hudson Valley, is thirty-five miles north of New York City, close enough that you can see the Manhattan skyline . . . . . . if you know where to look. But Harriman’s proximity to the densest metropolitan area in the United States of America is only part of what…
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What am I listening for? Chopin’s Scherzo No. 2 and the paradox of classical piano
This is the third post in an audio series about classical piano. Listen to the first two posts: (1) Classical piano is awesome, and problematic and bumbling, but still, it’s awesome (2) You know it when you hear it: A long, brief journey through classical piano Transcript: It is unfortunate that one big barrier to classical piano’s…
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The 800-meter track race: The intimacy of pain and pursuit
For the Summer Olympics in Tokyo, the New York Times put a sprinter, a middle-distance runner, and a marathoner on the world’s fastest treadmill, which is located at the Locomotor Performance Laboratory at Southern Methodist University in Texas and tops out at 90 mph, and analyzed the differences between running fast and running far. Near the end of the…
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Covid-19, hygiene theater, and the United States of Amnesia
Hygiene theater is not the—or even a—reason Covid-19 has hurt and killed so many Americans. The virus was novel and vicious, our government (like others) responded incompetently. Experts blundered, then battled their organizations’ mishaps. Yet even though hygiene theater may have had a negligible effect on disease prevention, it continuously wasted time and resources and, in the process, exposed the rotten pathology of American…
Nathan Schiller 