Mr. Carl Goes to Martindale
The Washington City Paper, September 9, 2005

In the fall of 2004, at the height of the Nation’ s real-estate boom, a District resident sold a townhouse on Capitol Hill and with the proceeds bought a ghost town in Texas. What’s a city slicker to do with three empty general stores, a former bank, a cotton-seed weigh station, several warehouses, a movie-set courtroom, an aquarium filled with cotton plants, a seed elevator, 16 seed silos, and 300 feet of frontage on the San Marcos River? On location, location, location in Martindale, Texas.

Carpet Diem
The Washington City Paper, August, 15, 2003

From a Monsanto lab in Georgia to a prep school in Rhode Island, and from the floor of the Astrodome to the front porches of row houses in the District—a natural history of unnatural grass.

No More Pencils, No More Books
The Washington City Paper, June 13, 2003

At the Fairhaven school, students don’t have to take classes, or play sports, or participate in extra curricular activities. So what do they do all day? When they’re not skateboarding, playing video games, or grappling with the existential questions of life, they spend a lot of time debating the bylaws of their existence. How did freedom from authority become so damn litigious?

A Gruesome Sport With Executions at Halftime
The New York Sun, December 14, 2005

A review of "The Gladiators: History's Most Deadly Sport," by Fik Meijer, a professor of ancient history at the University of Amsterdam.

Shaggy Dog Tales
The New York Sun, September 28, 2004

A review of "A Dog's History of America" by Mark Derr.