I crossed the Atlantic on my way from Boston to London in a haze of drunken nervousness. God, I hate the plane. The invasive thoughts pour in, crashing and slamming down into the abyss. Every jolt of turbulence bouncing my soul around in my body. Just look at me up there. Up in there […]
I went into the woods. Here I am with the swamp maples and towering pines growing defiantly out of the sandy soil. I know these forests and the roads that take me here. I’ve known them all my life. In my memory they were dark green and haunting. Some strange juxtaposition of comfort and peril […]
Humanity can’t go anywhere without dragging along an endless parade of cacophony. The sounds of the city; cars honking, engines racing, shouts, screams, sirens, music blaring, voices on the radio booming, accidents, helicopters, cackling, gunshots, commercials, sports broadcasts, sobbing—all of humankind relentlessly announcing itself in the grand parade. The countryside is better off, but is […]
Out on the street, I know how to hide. I move quick, flickering from pub to traffic signal under the yellow glow of streetlights and the muffled sounds of bass pulsating out of salt-caked Honda Civics and Ford Explorers. A blast of icy winter air whipping my face. Stress and anxiety is soldered into this […]
Writing is work. Hell, reading is work. I appreciate your eyeballs. I like to lie to myself and say I love the labor involved, but watching a movie or going out to dinner sounds a lot better than parking my ass in front of the blue glow of a computer screen, knocking out a […]
I never shut up about music. The great rock records, the classical symphonies and sacred masterworks of history all stand as towering monuments, every bit as immortal and important as the dazzling works of literature, architecture, art, theatre and film. These are the better angels of our nature. They tell the human story—our resplendent kindness […]
I left Los Angeles a few months ago. I moved out of the place for good and that’s that. The big story of my adult life up to this point has been the battle between myself and that city. A month after I graduated high school, I jumped on a train in Boston, bound for […]
Our classics and great traditions are a corpse that we resurrect every time we engage with them. If neglected, they remain a corpse—rotten, dead, forgotten—to our eternal detriment. The collected wisdom of the ages, disposed with like so much refuse. When engaged with properly, they are made new and live once more to illuminate the […]
I’ve been taking my health for granted. I’m well into my thirties now and I’ve yet to have been hospitalized for any illness. On the rare occasion I do fall ill, it’s most likely a quick flu that lingers around for a day or two. Even then, it’s an event that seems to happen around […]
Ah, the sun! The great giver and destroyer of life; oppressive and deadly, illuminating and vital. I like to keep out of its reach. My summer days are whittled away in the shade or in the comforting gloom of a darkened room with my face in a book, anticipating the return of the cold somewhere […]
