Fiction, Writing, Articles, Essays, Reviews.
You probably don’t need to be a fan of the National Football League to recognize the flag flying in my neighbor’s yard. Not the American flag–the flag of the Washington Football Team formerly known as the Washington Redskins. After decades of protests against the name being a slur against Native Americans, and team owner Daniel Snyder saying “We’ll never change the...
Julia got me into painting my toenails a few years back and I’ve been doing it ever since. Nail polishing was a fun and relaxing activity to do together and painted nails are a lot more attractive than plain ones. I even found myself enjoying, for perhaps the first time, the appearance of my toenails. Shimmering gold is one of my colors The truth is, I’ve always liked nail polish, despite...
When I travel I tend to grab a shorter, paperback book that’s easy to pack and easy to read. For my trip to Birmingham, I nabbed a tattered copy of ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT out of my Little Free Library. I’ve read a number of war novels and seen plenty of war movies, but this short, devastating novel is among the most powerful. Written by Erich Maria Remarque, a German soldier who served on...
In the spirit of knowing thy enemy, I tune into the Ingraham Angle on Fox News at 10 pm the night former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin is found guilty of murdering George Floyd. There is something sinister, conspiratorial, even bawdy about Laura Ingraham. Her eyes blaze with grievance, her glistening mouth curls in disdain. Her face is painted to smooth perfection. Tonight, she wears a...
Rerunning this post from last year. Why not? April 20 (4/20) is weed day. The day got its name in the 1970s in California when a group of high school students met after school around 4:20 to get high and 4/20 became a code phrase they could use in front of their parents. Its reputation spread from there. 420 Magazine, founded in 1993, has a mission around creating cannabis awareness. I...
Pagans on their way to wreak havoc. Coming up the thruway the other day a posse of the Pagans Motorcycle Club passed us. All of them on Harleys. All of them wearing the club uniform and insignia. When I got home I looked up the Pagans. They’re considered an outlaw motorcycle gang, with their hands sticky in the drug trade and organized crime. And here I thought these fellows were simply...
Another shooting and another and another. Our gun culture is ruining us. How many lives lost? How many more lives irrevocably harmed? Shootings have become so commonplace they are engrained in our psyche. Every time we go to the store, or to work, or school, or to gather to worship, whenever we go anywhere, the possibility of getting shot is real. Statistically unlikely, but real. I used a...
I need to come up with one more word to be Genius level: overell, pevelon, renovel, lonovore? They should be words, but I know better. I’ve been working on the Spelling Bee in The New York Times Magazine since I picked up the paper from my driveway Sunday morning. I like games with simple rules: words at least five letters long that must include the middle letter. One point each word. Use all 7...
I’d been warned to expect side effects from my second COVID-19 vaccine. Everyone I knew who’d gotten the second shot had felt punky with some combination of joint pain, low energy, headaches, fever, and nausea. I braced myself. Vaccine at noon on a Thursday. By bedtime I was congratulating myself for feeling great all day. Next morning: all good in the kingdom. I even agreed to meet a friend and...
I picked one off my Netflix queue last night: “Private Life.” Richard (Paul Giamatti) and Rachel (Kathryn Hahn) are a middle-aged couple struggling with infertility and desperate to have a child. Why so desperate, we’re not sure. They’ve tried everything as we quickly discover in a number of wry and painful scenes of crowded waiting rooms, specialist visits, drug injections, etc. Not...
Every day is national something awareness day and I just found out today is Siblings Day. I’d have felt horrible if I hadn’t raised a glass (you know what I like) in love and gratitude. How lucky I am to have this crew on my side. Five of us separated by 6.5 years. What kind of insanity had hold of my parents? These bigger families, it’s a lot of lives to keep track of when...
Make room please for one more anonymous submission to the genre of road trip movies and novels and musings that blazed before me, my quest a distant mirage, obstacles to cross, the road itself a character of quirks and demands, intent, driven, the vehicle a featured star, its wheels droning upon miles of pavement, painted lines, blurring past gray and rusted guardrails, the interstate slicing and...
Going through old files I found this story the kids and I wrote together years ago. I’ve recently encouraged parents to read to their young children, to tell each other stories, to use their imaginations. We sometimes worked on stories together, each contributing characters and plot lines. We put together a little collection of creepy tales. Here is one of our favorites, reprinted in its...
I don’t watch much television, but last night I turned on the set. Between checking out Aaron Rodgers hosting Jeopardy and waiting for the NCAA Men’s Basketball Final, I tuned into the Ken Burns documentary, “Hemingway,” a 3-part series that is airing on PBS. I thought I’d watch for a few minutes and ended up staying for two mesmerizing hours, missing a good chunk of the basketball game. The...
They arrange to meet at the art festival, inside the park, near the willows. Arriving separately, for a second date stroll. When they reach the end of the exhibit she took a risk and asked if he wanted to keep walking, such a perfect day, and he did, past the fountains and the playing fields, and ending up here for drinks. As soon as they get to the restaurant she excuses herself. They’d gotten...
Wendall Berry
Georgia’s corporate giants have found themselves in turbulent waters tacking against the winds and political pressure surrounding Georgia’s freshly-minted law, “Election Integrity Act of 2021.” Prior to the law being passed by the state’s Republican-controlled legislature and signed by Republican Governor Brian Kemp, most big corporations didn’t have much to say. Two household-name...
A question I’ve gotten a lot about my novels is a variation on “What parts are true?” This question irked me. I would retort with snappy answers: “None of it’s true, that’s why it’s called fiction.” Or: “It’s all true! I’m incapable of imagination.” Or: “Whatever part you believe is true.” I was bothered because asking about what’s true in a novel takes attention away from the work and places it...
The New York Times article, “Start Retraining for Social Interactions,” got off to a good start. The writer caught my attention early with “the prospect of readjusting to in-person social engagements may be a daunting one. For many, it provokes a sense of profound discomfort, apprehension or ambivalence.” I might have a touch of that. I’m accustomed to being at home, just Harriet and me, or...
If you want to point out the mistakes I’ve made as a parent, get in line, because there are a lot of people ahead of you. How many times did I say the stupid thing, enact the wrong rules, make the wrong decision? The ledger is long. But one thing Harriet and I got right was passing down to our kids a love—a need—of reading. They’re both in college now (something that a passion for reading makes a...
