Not long before my future son-in-law proposed to my daughter, he asked me what’s the secret to a long and successful marriage. I responded quickly, without much thought: “Marry the right person.” My answer sounded facile, on the cheeky side. Sure, marry the right person, that’s the obvious secret—but how can you be sure you’re doing that? I believe the foundation, what you must have, is...
I’ve been trying to up my reading game, and recently finished reading my eighth and ninth novels of the year, which averages out to one novel every ten days. Not that anyone is counting. This reading pace feels right to me, neither rushed nor leisurely, but instead allowing me to engage in careful, focused reading every day. Blue Ruin, by Hari Kunzru, was recommended by a friend. It begins in the...
I was recently invited to a celebratory event where I knew hardly anyone, other than Harriet and Owen who attended with me. (Julia was invited but couldn’t make it.) I was assigned to a table and sat next to a guy I’d never met. By nature, I am admittedly on the self-absorbed, distracted side, and not inherently a great listener. I’m not an effusive, chatty type. I’m not extroverted in any way...
I attended my third No Kings protest yesterday on a cold and windy day. For me, it was the best one yet. Not because I believe the fascist administration will in any way change their behaviors—they won’t suddenly start policing their own corruption; they won’t stop shooting U.S. citizens or throwing immigrants in camps without due process; they won’t stop protecting pedophiles; they won’t...
A few years ago, I tapped two maple trees on my property, collected sap, and boiled it outside on a single-burner hotplate to make syrup. With a ratio of 40 gallons of sap needed to create one gallon of syrup, I ended up with about eight ounces of maple syrup—enough for a couple of pancake breakfasts. It was a classic situation of the effort not equaling the reward. But over this past weekend I...
On my own for a couple of weeks, I’ve been finding things to do beyond my usual routines. Last night I went to watch the girls varsity basketball team from our local high school—Bethlehem Central—take on Troy in a playoff championship game. I knew nothing about the team. I hadn’t followed them. Only through a quick pre-game search did I discover the Eagles had finished a weak regular season with...
There comes a time in life when a person acquires a pill case. That time has come for me. I used to think pill cases were only for old people or the very ill who took lots of meds daily or for those who are supplement-crazed. It’s true I’m trending older, but I take only one prescription medication, and just three times a week. I pop a daily low-dose aspirin, and not having seen much sun this...
It is not without trepidation that I make an annual pilgrimage to my local Spectrum Theater to see the Oscar-Nominated Short Films—Live Action. What gives me pause is that in recent years, despite the films originating from countries around the world, most of them have been heavy on the tragedy: the boy who drowns in quicksand, the young woman sold into sexual slavery, the family double-crossed...
Do you ever read a book, or see a movie, or attend a performance, and walk out thinking, “Yeah, that was pretty good.” But then over the next hours and days you keep thinking about it, and the more you think about it, the more you appreciate what you experienced. It’s almost better afterwards, in your memory, than it was in real time. Send Help was that movie for me. Since the sad demise of the...
I’d never read the old copy of Wuthering Heights on our bookshelf, with the cover frayed and soft at the edges and the pages thin as tissue. But when I heard the movie was coming out I decided to give this novel a read. Published in 1847 under the pseudonym Ellis Bell, Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights is an early example of a Gothic novel from the Victorian period. Unlike its contemporary Jane...
The gallery and arts center MASS MoCA occupies the space of a nineteenth-century textile mill in North Adams, Massachusetts. This week we spent a brutally cold winter day roaming its galleries. Two exhibits stood out to me. Vincent Valdez’s work focuses on identity, social justice, and American History. A number of his oil paintings are done in grayscale, which I’ve not seen often. This one of...
I heard from a reader who got started on STILL LIFE and said that this sentence, which appears on only the second page of the novel, struck him as a perfect sentence: “I imagine the lake, too, through the leafless gap in the trees that winter opened like a cathedral door.” I don’t share this to brag or blow my own horn. Anyone who knows me knows I don’t do much of that. If anything, I’m more...
The dystopian novel 1984 by George Orwell was published in 1949. It was assigned as part of the English curriculum in my high school. I still have a copy of the novel on my bookshelf, and I reread it a few years ago. The totalitarian society depicted is led by the dictator Big Brother and supported by mass surveillance and the Thought Police, which publishes a steady stream of propaganda and...
Dots have always fascinated Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama, who continues to create art at the age of ninety-six. As a child, she experienced hallucinations where dots often appeared, and soon she began making art with polka dots. She said the use of dots was a way to confront and gain control over the terrifying hallucinations. What better way to deal with trauma than through art? Kusama also sees...
Yes, I went to the Spectrum Theater to see “Train Dreams” the other night, but I attended with a heavy heart: The Delmar Dad’s Movie Club lasted exactly one year, and then, without warning, blew up spectacularly. First, Jimmy broke up with us via text: “We did a year and it was good. But I’m not into continuing.” Paul and I were shocked, I tell you, although maybe we shouldn’t have...
