Picture: Collecting books for readers in the reserve stacks, 1964: http://flic.kr/p/6YUnLX When studying English literature at school in England, you could be excused for thinking…
Picture: Umbrellas at James Smith’s Umbrella Shop by Rev Dan Catt Harriet: ‘Only connect’ EM Forster famously said, at least before the phrase got co-opted…
I see my mother everywhere. The food court is full of my mother – not in a bad way but in a full way. She is waiting in line to buy us knishes. She is talking to a man who looks like my father with her chin raised just a little so she can look younger. She is 90 but she knows she can pass for 75. She has at least a quarter of a century fewer wrinkles than someone else her own age.
People ask me a lot about my teeth. They say, “Ben, how can you live with those rotten meat picks? You look like you’ve been chewing rock salt again. By the way, how is that ‘poetry’ thing of yours going?” (Well, I see ‘poetry’ in quotes.)
Anticuchos are grilled marinated beef hearts. They were among the indigenous specialties of Peru that an ex-boyfriend had encountered during his Peace Corps stint and that he introduced me to at our local Peruvian restaurant.
“Vegas is outrageous” Arthur exclaims as we make out way into the steamy night, and for once I had to admit I agreed with him.
I’m not a writer, at least not in the real sense of the word. Maybe in the way that people who call themselves writers to…
In November of 1963, a woman turned to my father in line at the bank and said – referring to President Kennedy’s recent assassination –…
One morning, while visiting my mother in Florida, I found myself in Publix-the kind of supermarket we used to fantasize about back home-waiting on line for a lottery ticket.