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Preface
Yesterday afternoon I sat in a Starbucks, reminiscing about the days when I could still wring a few pretty words out of a Starbucks. The routine is comforting: I pick a table and plant my shoulder against the wall for support, and listen to the smiles of the men and women rolling across the scene like a zoetrope. Then I read my book, in this ( Read more... ) -
Books, 9/1/08-9/1/09
When I first began making these annual statements, a lifetime and a half ago, I found them exciting; now, they feel more like birthdays. Yet despite setbacks and obstacles, here we are again: another 365 days, another 52 books. Perhaps next year life or common sense will intervene ( Read more... ) -
Books, 9/1/07 - 9/1/08
Another year passes again ( Read more... ) -
En Passant
"The blunders are all on the board, waiting to be made." -Tartakover ( Read more... ) -
Books, 9/1/06-9/1/07
Another year passes. Tomorrow I'm going with K and my mother to stand among the Redwoods in Northern California. Then we'll shuttle between inns up the Pacific Coast Highway, stopping to look at lighthouses, cross bridges and start on this year's list. I have seven paperback books ready for my ten-day trip, which is probably somewhat optimistic ( Read more... ) -
Status Report
Friday: The closing of the accounting chapter of my life. The save point has been reached. That evening, I will go home, eat dinner, and make a little coffee with some Irish Cream in it ( Read more... ) -
Evening Wear
The subject of the conversation was bridesmaid's dresses. This outcome, while neither pleasant nor avoidable, owed to a series universal truths. Four hours ago a man and woman had gotten married on a small ferry in the bay. Half a dozen unnamed women in their late twenties huddled around a makeshift campfire, shivering into their flimsy ( Read more... ) -
Road Game
The playground appears as if it were colored by children: the sky is an unbroken blue, the trees scribbled green and the ground a sunburned shade of yellow. The heat swirls and leaps, biting my calves above my white cotton socks. From beneath the ancient, storm-tarnished basketball hoop I take twelve paces and draw a line in the sand with the ( Read more... ) -
current events
I don't watch television, and I don't read the newspaper. I rarely read books written by people who are, at the moment of this writing, technically alive. I see a movie in the theater an average of eight or ten times per year. I don't even know which celebrities are enduring scandals at this particular moment. Occasionally during slow times at ( Read more... )
