BAGHDAD, IRAQ-

Of course it makes no sense to write this today.  Who will read it while everyone is picnicking by the lake, lining Main Street to watch the parade, or gathering around the bandstand in the park to applaud the speeches and listen to the high school band? 

Even those engaged in the increasingly more popular July 4th (or any other date) pursuit of staying home all day to surf the Internet in search of porn while waiting for comments to be posted to their MySpace blogs are unlikely to get around to perusing this.

But I have to write it, because the commitment we make for the privilege of appearing on these pages means adherence to a menstrual cycle, and my thirty days for writing at least one post are almost up.  It’s time for the writer’s cramp to give way to the flow of creative juices.  I’ve got a ThinkPad ready to absorb it all. Read more »

AUSTIN, TX-

With the 4^th of July upon us, my neighbor screaming from a lost extremity at the hands of a Black Cat and enough potato salad in my gullet to occupy Paris, I got to thinking about America. And American institutions. Well, people, the hallowed institution of marriage is under attack in America, not just from Communists like Barney Frank and the state of Iowa, but also from other insidious forces both seen and unseen. So, in the interest of preserving the kind of marriage that God and Texas intended, here are some things to be especially mindful of:

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PARIS, FRANCE -

In a field
I am the absence
of field.
This is
always the case.
Wherever I am
I am what is missing.

-Mark Strand

We’re in Brussels walking across a quiet square half-lost and cold.  The sky is gray, the city quiet.  What we thought we’d find isn’t here.

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MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA-

Let me be perfectly honest - I have, in the past, told lies. It’s a habit I try to avoid, but usually when I lie, it’s a lie so ridiculous that I assume no one else could possibly believe it, and will see it for what it is. I have, at one point or another, claimed to be too good-looking to get sick, or feel the cold. I invented the fake academic discipline ‘Bio-Nuclear Physics’, in answer to the question of what I studied at university. When asked at a party how I met my friend Luke, I said that, at different times on the same day, we both saved each other from sharks.

Not true. Read more »

LOS ANGELES-

My wife and I drive to a nondescript mall off Wilshire, park the car in the shade, so the dog won’t suffocate, and make our way to the Korean Dumpling restaurant. The specifications we read in the LA Magazine are all wrong and the owner laughs at us and explains that Mandu and King Dumplings are the same and that the King Dumplings can be had with beef or Kimchi and that the panfried dumplings come only with pork. Read more »

MIAMI BEACH,FL-

Recently, Victor and I flew to L.A. to see Lenore and Lonny. Victor and I go to LOTS of movies and we were not going to go 10 days without seeing at least a couple, especially in L.A. (the land of movie enchantment). Lenore does not usually accede to art movies. She acts as though she can’t read subtitles. I, personally, do not believe this. In any case, we convinced her to see Tyson, because it was in English. Even SHE had to admit that she was glad she went. It was a great film and no matter what you might think of Mike Tyson, you will not feel the same after you see it.

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VANCOUVER-

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SAN DIEGO, CA-

Being as this is my first post a contributor, I thought I’d take this opportunity to introduce myself before really getting into the thick of things. Don’t worry, I’ve got plenty of stories I want to post–tales of alligator punch-outs, sleeping on OB/GYN exam tables, and excessive quantities of personal lubricant, among other things–but since I’ve spend most of the last couple of years lurking about here and at Our Fearless Leader’s blog without really commenting, I understand that no one other than a handful of the TNB comment board faithful really have any idea who I am. And that it would probably be a good idea if we had ourselves a little getting-to-know-you session before getting down to the nitty-gritty. This is our first date, after all.

There’s just one problem.

I hate that congenial getting-acquainted phase of the first date.

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LOS ANGELES, CA-

For the record, I teach these people legitimate ESL topics, like present perfect and subjunctive clauses. I’m used to being challenged on why Americans say books but not geeses, or on subtleties like why “last year I had a girlfriend” makes sense and “last year I was having a girlfriend” doesn’t. But what in teacher-training school could have prepared me for last Monday, I wonder. Tommy Park, a 27-year-old stuck, perpetually, somewhere in his early teens, proceeded to talk to me about porn for twenty whole minutes.

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SOMEWHERE ABOVE BOULDER, CO-

I must not fear. 
Fear is the mind-killer. 
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. 
I will face my fear. 
I will permit it to pass over me and through me. 
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. 
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. 
Only I will remain.

- The Bene Gesserit Litany against Fear / Frank Herbert’s Dune

It is a couple of days ago. I am driving in my Jeep down the mountain road from my house. The sun is shining. The aspens are twinkling. On the side of the road, little sprigs of wildflowers are glowing yellow and purple in the sun. With the exception of the unfortunate necessity for the use of fossil fuels, it is all very Zen.

I must not fear.

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CHICAGO, IL–

Dear Alice Hoffman,

I should specify that I have not read your books.  I know, I know, I’m a writer/editor and you are a Famous Literary Figure–I get that I should have your novels under my belt by now.  They’ve been on my to-do list, I promise.

Of course they’re not there anymore, because now instead of being a Famous Literary Figure, you are a Famously Crazy Person.  But fear not–I have the solution for you: go to rehab.

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SANTA CRUZ, CA-

This is from a series of images that I think of as my parents’ wedding pictures, although they didn’t have a wedding. They were married at the courthouse by a justice of the peace in December 1965. My father was twenty-three going on twenty-four. My mother was nineteen.

They met in Iowa City, where my father had grown up. My mother was an art major at the university. She was a member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, or SNCC (pronounced snick), when my father came as a guest speaker to talk about his experiences registering black voters in Mississippi. He was there in 1964, when the events that became the basis for the movie Mississippi Burning unfolded. Three civil rights workers were killed.

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SANTA MONICA–

The following video documents an experience I had with a new health product containing lemur semen. If you, like me, sometimes question all the crazy things people do in the name of health, I invite you to watch.

Please visit here before reading on… Read more »

ANNAPOLIS, MD-

In my role as a Very Nice Person, I think many things I never say. Oh, I think about saying them. I think them loudly. I say them with my posture. I glare at my computer screen through the most long-winded and pointless stories. But even when I’m seething, I cannot stop myself from uttering the occasional polite “mmhmm.”

It’s actually embarrassing how often I have to fight the urge to say cruel things. For example: Read more »

ST. AUGUSTINE, FL-

Sometimes you think you know everything there is to know about your family, and then one day you get the rug pulled out from under you. You find out that you’re adopted. Or your grandfather had a few felony convictions he kept on the down-low. Or that incredibly hot nerdy girl with the vintage glasses who works at the used bookstore downtown just might be your second cousin. For me, it was something less earth-shattering but no less dramatic.

As it turns out, I’m not nearly as German as I thought I was..

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