There was this badass coworker of mine, a teacher who skedaddled to Hungary last year. We chatted a lot between classes, in the halls of our school. Who knows where he is now (as in, I haven’t messaged him in a while, and he’s probably still modeling three-piece suits on the streets of Budapest, last […]

Today, as I write, is Good Friday. Can we do an hour of meditation on good and evil? Yes. Let’s start one way, turn the other, then conclude somewhere in the middle.   “Good.”   My favorite word is a simple word: good.   I love good, I like good, I need good, I want […]

Sore-throated and restless, our hero today discovers the root.   He moved to a new city last week, and has been learning the language. Technically, it’s an old city, old language, since his family is from here originally. For this, something tells him he has returned to the city, although it is his first time […]

America is a pretty important place. And yes I call it America, because that is how I grew up hearing it. I like the name, too, what’s there to say. A-mer-i-ca. Merica. Murica.   If it suddenly stopped existing, which if we believe what anyone says, could be any day now, then I would like […]

The restroom was occupied.   So Margot danced to the center, where Gaspar and Linda were wrapped in a single embrace. When the couple noticed who was approaching, they made room.   “Happy birthday,” shouted Gaspar.   “You throw cool parties,” followed Linda.   Margot thanked the new couple, handing each a red solo cup. […]

“. . . come back to say goodbye to me, and I will make you a present of a secret.”   My uncle used to say, a bad lunch ruins your day. You go away hungry for not having eaten, angry for having spent the money, and, on top of that, you must wait until […]

(art attributed to Gerrel Saunders)   If you don’t count sleeping with someone you shared a bed with before your current girlfriend, then I have never cheated. If you don’t count video sex as intimacy, then I have never cheated. If you don’t count it as cheating when you are single but the other person […]

for Gloria Anzaldúa   Open your eyes. Over you stands an eagle-looking priest with an obsidian knife in his hand, ready to cut open your chest from throat to stomach. It’s for a god you do not believe in, but because your hands are tied, you better believe.   Dizzy, the rough of the sacrificial […]

A poignant question, and I seem to have but an hour to ponder the thought. Thus I invite you to take your index finger and run it along the cracks of your vanity mirror, get it out of your matrix. This one’s on the penny side to-day. Ride.   Is it fair to call it […]

Big-breasted women, five steins a hand, and charming men in green, short-short overalls stuffed each other’s mouths with bratwurst and beer till they couldn’t rock no more. Bavaria. Its capital: München. Things played out a little differently there for the boys and me, who had gotten used to the exaggerations of Italy and indulgences of […]

This blogger knows he is about to walk through a room cluttered with cliches (ex, “Art for art’s sake,” “Business is an art,” “Selling out,” “Get ya money”), but stepping past each one, eyeing them a second, so as to reach the clear corner of the room, to breathe.   Today’s target vocabulary: Artistic prostitution, […]

“Rick was a bro, a gentleman seen few and far between, of a caliber unknown to the race of man, the headless baton twirler in a parade called Life, a backpacker extraordinaire, a counter-demon and Lord of the Pismire. Rick Callaghan.” (The Summer Abroad, Part III, Chapter 8.)   Thus we find Rick, one of […]

Have you ever wondered what makes a great piece of literature? Theorist Viktor Shlovsky believed that what a good story was was this, one that sticks around, plays with us, remains. However, to achieve that “long-lasting effect” in a work of art takes a specific set of devices. Like poetic speech. In our phonetic and […]

It came to my attention that I should focus on deepening my characters. As it goes, things should actually happen in a story. Funny, because I have known for a while that my personages spend a lot of time thinking. What’s wrong with thinking. That some people don’t want to read it. While everyone wants […]

It occurs to me that, were I to exaggerate, I have never needed to write. My writing comes from a place of want. I want to write. The struggle is, in this case, when one wants to write, that the quality of the work comes into question. Wanting, one invests time, writes from desire or […]