Pay attention. Let it be. Say exactly what you think, and what you mean. Stop pretending it’s so damn hard to be human. Show your teeth to God. Do what you can. Every time you notice the stars –and I hope you’ll notice them often– I want you to think of me alone in this … Read more
There are a few gaps in our health coverage. I went to the dentist this morning for my semi-annual cleaning and check up. Sometimes I go 8 or 9 months between, mostly because of my schedule and his. But I always go eventually, and sooner, rather than later. I’m glad I can afford it. I … Read more
THIS is football Everyone who’s got a brain, and there are damn few of us left, is not even that upset about Pat Robertson’s calling for the assasination of Hugo Chavez. That sort of boorish behavior by Americans is pretty old news, after all. In case you haven’t been paying attention, Robertson and his ilk … Read more
The right to bare arms…and more I was sitting around with a few wags yesterday and we were talking about the problems the Iraqis (if there is such a thing–as opposed to Sunni, or Shiite or Kurd, that is) were having in getting some agreement on a constitution. Aside from the squabbles over oil revenues … Read more
I apologize for that last entry. I apparently wrote [sic] it during the empirical blackout in which I have been lost the last several days. I confess that it makes absolutely no sense to me, and although it is not uncommon for things that show up here to make no sense to me in the … Read more
–Illustration by James Dankert I’m back, but –like the Twins– just barely. Zellar’s had a muzzle on me ever since I tried to dictate a column to his answering machine in the middle of the night. This, of course, was after I’d had a few beers, and after the Twins had finished kicking the shit … Read more
Knock, knock. Who’s there? Me. Me who? Whom? I don’t get it. We have a winner!
We haven’t had a chance to look at the new issue of the New Yorker–the one that has been entirely underwritten by the Target corporation. That’s because we haven’t received our copy, and this is added to the bank of anecdotal evidence that the magazine is delivered to nicer neighborhods first, or perhaps to readers … Read more
The world is a complex fatigue. —Hayden Carruth, “August First” Whatever asks, heart kneels and offers to bear. —Jane Hirshfield, “What the Heart Wants” Now of all voyagers I remember, who among them Did not board ship with grief among their maps? — Till it seemed men never go anywhere, they only leave Wherever they … Read more
Footfalls echo in the memory Down the passage which we did not take Towards the door we never opened Into the rose-garden. –T.S. Eliot, from “Burnt Norton“ It is terrible when the whole man resonates with echoes and echoes, none becoming a real voice. —Elias Canetti, Notes From Hampstead Broken world: How is it that … Read more