Hugh Ryan

Freelance writer

Dining Dilemma

First published in Westchester Magazine’s August 2011 issue. Read the original here.
My parents’ dining room table is early 20th-century mahogany, with solid columnated legs and comfortable seating for six—eight if necessary, 10 on desperate family occasions. In the morning, it’s newspaper sprawl and pots of coffee. In the afternoon, laptops and lunch. Family dinner, whether for [...]

On William Buehler Seabrook’s The Magic Island

First published in Tin House on March 1, 2011. Purchase the issue here.
Excerpt
I’m a sucker for a good monster-origin story. What’s Cujo without the rabies, Godzilla without the bomb?
So how about this: Imagine a man born at the end of the nineteenth century, the all-American son of a traveling preacher. He drives a French [...]

An Arcade to Make Gamers Cry

First published in The New York Times on February 10, 2011. Read the original with comments and photo gallery here.
ON my first visit to Babycastles, an independent arcade in Queens, I watched as two young women explained to a friend the rules of a video game. It didn’t involve fighting, special moves [...]

Pinball Museums Light Up Around the Country

First published in The New York Times on December 17, 2010. Read the original with comments here.
STEP inside the Shops at Georgetown Park, a shopping mall in Washington, D.C., and you’ll find two nine-foot-tall flippers and a giant floating silver ball. It’s not a piece of public art — it’s the entrance to [...]

On Richard Halliburton’s The Glorious Adventure

First published in Tin House #45, Fall 2010.
I first came across Richard Halliburton during a layover in Brooklyn on my way from San Juan, Puerto Rico, to New Orleans. I was moving because I’d failed to find work as a deckhand in the Caribbean, my goal for the winter. The main problem was I [...]

Papers, Please! The GOP Wants to be Sure You’re a Citizen

First published on Global Comment on August 9, 2010. Read the original with comments here.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell says he’s open to requiring parents to prove their citizenship in the birth room (a logistical nightmare for hospitals), in order to prevent illegal immigrants from having children who would qualify as American citizens. He has [...]

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