Death and Logarithms
One of my more difficult kids today, champion eye-roller, adenoidal whiner, one who feels the indignity of being sixteen more acutely than most and takes it out on me. Probably doesn’t even need a tutor, seems to pick up a decent understanding of the material from class, but highly unmotivated, vulnerable to that oldest of […]
Read MoreSpectacles, Marriage & Civilization
I am getting closer to my glasses, I can feel it. Ever since I was robbed of my spectacles in South America, I’ve been dawdling in replacing them. But lately I’ve been picking up momentum. Every time I see an optician I duck in and try on all the frames. I’ll ask the salespeople to […]
Read MoreThe Greatest Caper That Never Was
Momentarily contemplating committing insurance fraud and disappearing forever into the Intangible Zone.
Read MoreIn Your Neighborhood
With nothing better to do tonight, I went out for a walk and ended up, as Baudelaire says, taking a bath in the multitude. Modest Mouse was playing in McCarren Park Pool, an event of epic proportions of importance in the hipster universe in which I both fortunately and unfortunately reside. I circled the track […]
Read MoreLima, Peru
Having neatly skipped over a summer of salient details–reconstructionist Judaism vs. reformed, East Coast vs. West, wealthy enclaves of Long Island’s East End vs. those of the Cape Cod’s outer reaches, the life span of a human vs. that of a golden retriever and therefore weddings vs. funerals and therefore love vs. death–I come to […]
Read MoreThe Great Lawn
The crowd at the playground at 85th and Central Park West is about half nannies, half mommies, with the nannies up by a woman or two. There are Thai nannies, Indian nannies, Caribbean nannies, Dominican nannies, post-collegiate American nannies, matronly nannies. Some of the nannies are like mommies, wiping noses, feeding Cheerios one by one, […]
Read MoreFriends of Moynihan Station
Yesterday, I spent the afternoon writing in the New York Public Library. I thought it might be different to write in an enormous room full of marble and hardwood. It wasn’t. I was still there and so was the blank page. It was just like writing at home, except that when I leaned back in […]
Read MoreOutdone By the Television Listings
“Come to an art party in Bushwick,” said the bright-eyed young hipsters, the wide-eyed young poets, the starry-eyed young lovers. “You can read a poem.” I found a poem. It was a found poem. I stomped through the snow. I read it while the sleet drummed stacatto outside, on all the hard surfaces of the […]
Read MoreYou Don’t Know What You Got Till It’s Gone
I know that Takashi* and Sung* had to move forward with their relationship. (*Names and identifying details have been changed to protect the innocent, who, if you read on, you will find to definitely include Takashi and Sung.) I know that the time had come for them to shack up together in one of the […]
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