Fiction, Writing, Articles, Essays, Reviews.
After a blip last month in which one of us missed, the Delmar Dads Movie Club was back last night with a full roster of our three founding members. It was Paul’s turn to choose, and this guy is on a winning streak. We saw Weapons, the kind of horror/mystery/thriller type film I would never choose, but am glad that he did. Weapons has one of those far-out concepts: what happens to a community when...
My mom, Irene Klein, died more than 40 years ago when she was 58 and I was 24. I was still largely undeveloped as an adult, and losing my mother was a huge blow. I drifted rudderless and without purpose for some years after. I’ve always wondered what my life would have been like if she’d been around to continue loving me and guiding me. Then when I was 35, in marrying Harriet, I gained a mother...
I forgot to include a story in the newsletter I write for the tennis club. I forgot we were going to tell the kids about the Richardsons. I forgot to get my car inspected because when I looked at the sticker it was three months overdue. Harriet reminded me we were going to tell the kids about the Richardsons. I went to the hardware store, the grocery store, and the library, and I remembered my...
It’s not often I finish a book and experience a welling of tears and realize I’ve just read a great work of American literature. But John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath just did it to me. I think I read the novel in high school, although I remember nothing of it. I came into it this time fresh and without opinion. And the Joad family and their journey of survival blew me away. Tenant farmers in...
Scorchy July is now behind usSummer is halfway throughOpen your mind to August Shadows become a bit more robustThe days have an angled castWilliam Faulkner wrote The Light in AugustLegend says people feel more lustIn April many babies are bornSomething in the air in August It’s a time when people can combustWatch Pacino in Dog Day AfternoonIt takes place in the heat of August If you’re...
Anyone who reads this blog knows that I’m a fan of multilinear films and novels, which are constructed around multiple protagonists with intersecting storylines and driven by a central theme. So when Owen told me he watched the film Crash (2004), I was keenly interested in his reaction. As a side note, I included Crash with the word ‘Sorry’ in parentheses, on my “List of Must-See Movies.” I...
I’ve given talks about my books and answered questions from readers. I’ve stood in front of audiences and hosted business presentations. I’ve confidently pitched marketing ideas to skeptical executives. I’ve performed timed slide presentations at Pecha Kucha nights. I’ve given eulogies at funerals and toasts at weddings. None of these public speaking situations did me in. And yet, I have a...
I walk into this view and greedily soak in every color and texture until I’m drunk on beauty, cool sand beneath my feet, demure waves rippling onto shore and out again, sun spraying the sky pink and casting golden upon the water, a solitary bird my companion, the horizon and the tree line the extent of my world. I want to appreciate this moment completely and I also want to take a photo for...
A subset of the Delmar Dads Movie Club went to the Spectrum Theater last night and saw “Friendship,” a cringey black comedy starring the actor and comedian Tim Robinson, whom I’d never heard of, but apparently is popular. It was my turn to choose what film we’d see on the second Wednesday of this month, and darn if the pickings weren’t slim. I almost chose “F1” but was warned by someone trusted...
I must have been six or seven years old, hopefully not nine or ten. Our family was at Crystal Beach, an amusement park located on the shore of Lake Erie in Ontario. We went there once every summer, having earned ride tickets based on the grades we got on our report cards. My older siblings were going on the Magic Carpet, a walk-through funhouse with crooked rooms, funny mirrors, moving walls...
We are emotionally available, we have words to express our feelings. We rally for our friend in need. We are men. I can’t trust her. You shouldn’t trust her. She’s admitted to everything I’ve found out but nothing more. You’ve got her cornered. She’s on the defensive. She won’t even talk to me. Let’s have a beer. I’m a mess right now. I’m in a bad space and it feels like it will never end. We can...
I hear the jagged revving of chainsaws in my neighborhood and I head outside to investigate. A few houses down the block from mine a tree removal crew is on the job, a crane extending high into the canopy, a chipper idling in the road ready to chomp. Multiple trees are being taken down in the front of one of the shadiest houses on the block. Towering, majestic oaks I’ve always admired. They must...
The New York Post is not one of my go-to information sources, but you never know what will show up in your feed, and I clicked on an article about something called the Gen Z gaze. The first line in the article: “If you’ve ever walked up to a cashier or front desk and been met with a silent stare, you’ve been a victim of the ‘Gen Z gaze’.” Maybe you know the stare. You’re next in line and when...
An essay published by the bipartisan think tank the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) discussed the challenge of surprising your enemy in a military attack in the twenty-first century. Back in the day, it was easier to pull off a military shocker. Case in point: the United States was woefully unprepared for the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. But today...
I annually repost this column from an earlier date of ten dad lessons I’ve learned in honor of all fathers on this Father’s Day. With every passing year, these lessons feel more relevant and continue to guide my evolving role as a father as my kids become independent adults. They’re all based on my experience. 1. Show Up Regardless of whether you live with them or not, a father’s job...
While Trump presided over a noxious display of military might at his Soviet-style parade in Washington yesterday, we participated in the No Kings protest against dictatorship and for democracy. Thousands of people in Albany came out to peacefully protest the accumulation of unconstitutional power by the current administration, to denounce its cruelty, to speak out against its policies that favor...
I’ve meant to read the British author Rachel Cusk for some time. She’s been praised by critics and awarded literary prizes throughout a writing career that has spanned twelve novels and several books of nonfiction. She writes about women, in contrast to another author I recently discovered, David Szalay, who writes about men. I probably should have started with Cusk’s acclaimed trilogy, Outline...
Since the day I was old enough to stray from my mother’s watchful eye and wander off from our blanket spread on the sandy, modest public beach at Thunder Bay on the shore of Lake Erie in Canada, I would take beach walks along the curve of the bay. Walk east, and you come across Root Beer Creek, so named by us for its water color. Walk west, and you come across a flat rock area abutting the shore...
One of my favorite punctuation marks—the em dash—(see what I did there?) is under siege. I’ve made liberal use of the em dash in all five of my novels, deploying it early and often in my writing style: STASH (page 1): “But she reminded herself that Nora was only seven, a loving, intelligent girl, tall and strong and for the most part capable, yet fearful of small things going wrong—such as...
Our hiking season begins on a perfectly pleasant day on the shoulder between Spring and Summer. Mild temps, verdant landscape, stream crossings, muddy spots, flitting bugs. Jimmy and I wanted to ease our way in, so we picked a hike of about six miles that would get us to the top of two of the highest Catskill peaks—Blackhead and Black Dome. Color of the day: green. But memory can lead us astray...
