I live in utter fear of motivational products—those soundbites of schlocky uplift that appear on calendars and posters, accentuating images of glorious sunsets, soaring eagles, big-eyed children dressed as cute hobos, and kittens dangling precariously from tree branches by their tiny, razor-sharp claws. It’s because there lives inside me a deep-seated anxiety that everything I … Read more
I had begun writing on an entirely different subject for this month’s column—plea bargaining—but then a friend called to tell me that Richard Franklin Lennox Thomas Pryor III had died. I put all thoughts about plea bargains aside, went down to my basement, and dug out an old Pryor album. Staring at it, I was … Read more
Heaven, said the Regency wit Sydney Smith, is eating paté de foie gras to the sound of trumpets. It sounds pretty piggy if you ask me, all too like the fellow who said that you should decide what to do in life by following your bliss. And rather odd doctrine for S. Smith, who made … Read more
Losing weight and quitting smoking are always the top two New Year’s resolutions for us Americans. Not to brag, but I’ve done both—quitting a twelve-year, pack-a-day smoking habit and losing (and regaining and relosing) a rather substantial amount of weight in my life. I did neither by making a New Year’s resolution. Like most really … Read more
— People are talking about whether Rev. Randolph (Randy) Staten will run for his old seat representing North Minneapolis in the Minnesota House of Representatives. If he did, and won, he would become Minnesota’s version of former Washington mayor and convicted felon Marion Berry: a political player who went through a very public crash-and-burn, followed … Read more
Our century has been remarkably efficient in the manufacture of wastelands. In Uptown you can still experience the sort of passageways down which Mr. Eliot smelt steaks, but nowadays they seem to have almost a period charm. It is the same reading about the Algiers described by Albert Camus; the delicious colonial loucheness of the … Read more
Pat was my boss at the diner. I’d say she was around fifty years old, but I don’t know for sure. That’s just not the kind of question you ask your boss. Donnie the dishwasher was thirty-five, with the mental capacity of an adolescent. Then again, how many teens do you know who could work … Read more
Sitting on my desk is the final “absolute, no kidding, no extensions possible” request for my submission to the Harvard and Radcliffe Class of 1981 Twenty-Fifth Anniversary Report. After twenty-five years, Harvard wants an accounting of what I have done with my life. I ignored the three or four previous requests because I had trials … Read more
The Orient, said Metternich, begins at the Ring. It is hardly surprising an Austrian statesman of the early nineteenth century should think the Near East was as close as the suburbs of Vienna. The Ottoman Turks besieged the Austrian capital at least twice and the favor was returned each time an Austrian army, arrayed boldly … Read more
It’s time to take that other monthly business more seriously. Yeah, I know this is the November issue. But, gentle readers, I am speaking to you from the recent past of October third! Boooooooo! I am the ghost of October third! And where I’m coming from, it’s still National Breast Cancer Awareness month. So let’s … Read more