New Eyes   They say that the natives on the shore of the Atlantic Ocean never saw Columbus’s boats coming, because they had never learned to recognize the four-mast ships, let alone imagine one previously.   Now, look here: I am in a new country, surrounded by a new culture, equipped only with what I […]

The list, the log   It helps to return on occasion to the list of books you’ve read; granted, if you keep such a list. Remember how in elementary school teachers asked us to keep a “log” of titles and page numbers, maybe a summary? Students earned stars. Parents were happy. And though it might […]

The next book is called They Lived They Were at Brighton Beach. And this post is a respite from feeling like I have to work at it. Thank you post!   What else compares to the chasm between inching forward in life and looking back to see how far one has come? Nostalgia wins every time. […]

A shout out to Michael, my friend who tugged at my writer’s collar the other day, asking, When are you going to start blogging again?   So here I am. Not necessarily at his behest, but reminder. It’s nice to feel this digital cauldron burns again for hungry readers.   A lot has happened since […]

With my inner wrist, I wiped the last dregs of vomit from my lips. The sickness was finally gone. Inside that toilet bowl was Bali, my dysentery, was Singapore, our sorrow, yesterday’s night out. I flushed, and washed my mouth, felt healthy. Sam was swinging his head to a song and cleaning his camera lenses, […]

? To be in any form, what is that? If nothing lay more developed the quahaug and its callous shell                 were enough. Mine is no callous shell, I have instant conductors all over me whether I pass or stop, They seize every object and lead it harmlessly through me. I merely stir, press, feel […]

Alright, yall. This post has to happen. It has to. The feels need lines. My life, over a lined loose leaf, hole-punched, types. Prompted? A little. Go. I’m writing on the Uber to JFK. Lots of items got lost, left, in the last minute packing. Blankeys gone, knicknacks patty wacks gone, clothes from Austin, NY, […]

The twins left. It was only Morgan and me in the apartment—Oslo ice blue as ever, sweet; distant Earth—we woke up late, scrambled up some sardines for breakfast and sat around all day watching videos on YouTube. There was stillness in that apartment, stillness and the occasional laugh from a funny video. Morgan and I […]

It is as hot as last Sunday. The air smells like sand and seafoam. There she is.   The same waitress works today. She wears an apron, but who cares. Ilya is distracted. He can’t look straight at the woman he is meant to join. He sees her table has an empty seat. He just […]

I’ve realized that there is no point in occulting any more on this page, or any page really. After all, I can always delete the extremes, though I’ll try not to. Yeah. This’ll be the only fully autobiographical work I’ll write. The truest to the details. But for that reason, I do not intend on […]

Noé? Who he?   Only one of my top three favorite directors. Ever since I watched his 2002 Irréversible, and it hit me in the stomach with a glass fist, I have been a junkie, in debt to him and his style. Inside his career’s stash box one finds films, music videos, screenings at Cannes, […]

To borrow from a professor of mine, about analyzing literature, you should do three things to understand and share your understanding of a work: 1. Quote it. 2. Comment on it. 3. Question it. With this formula, the QCQ, let us speak to this 2013 novel about a writer who descends into hallucinatory darkness, predilection […]

I hear Alan Watt’s voice talking about not changing anything, because it is impossible. Maybe the way things are are the way things ought to be. Then, I hear Michael Jackson’s voice saying if you want to make the world a better place, take a look at yourself and make a change. Wouldn’t he have […]

Ain’t no thing, either way, the play ends.   We go home, and go to bed. Commonly, a happy ending comes at the end of a comedy, usually in a marriage; while a sad ending comes at the end of a tragedy, usually everyone’s death.   You could argue that the genre of a work […]

Later that night, Ana walked to the bar to prove to Lindsey that the lighter still worked. She had called the lighter broken. “Fill it up then,” Lindsey replied, with her usual big smile, “and bring it tonight.” The gravity of these words did not escape Ana, who muttered, “T-tonight, t-to UFO?”   “Yes, to […]