tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-55415592009-02-21T04:10:11.177-05:00One boy's quest discloses a wider, weirder world. Dogs. Windows. &c.Nemonoreply@blogger.comBlogger61125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5541559.post-1088558598087565942004-06-29T21:19:00.000-04:002004-06-29T21:23:18.086-04:00

I never liked Coach Cash, especially. Or perhaps I should say I never really trusted him, which maybe amounts to the same thing, when you’re fifteen. I didn’t trust anyone who smiled that much. I didn’t think grown-ups should care whether or not we liked them. Respect was all that mattered, I thought. And it’s certainly true that I didn’t respect Coach Cash. God, fifteen. I thought I was the

Nemonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5541559.post-1084406559400836102004-05-12T20:01:00.000-04:002004-05-12T20:02:39.400-04:00

Hard to believe my time here is almost at an end. Hard to believe three years have passed since I arrived one June evening in the Virginia suburbs with a carload of clothes, a guitar, and no prospects to speak of. I will always remember Nuria racing barefoot across a shady lawn and jumping on me with a hug. Because I needed that so badly then from someone. I was exhausted, depressed—a wordless

Nemonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5541559.post-1084229686680979182004-05-10T18:54:00.000-04:002004-05-10T18:54:46.680-04:00

Shortly before the end of the universe, my fiancée and I found ourselves entering that long, straight stretch of purgatory known popularly as the New Jersey Turnpike. It had been a tense eight-plus hours on the road, but when I spotted first toll plaza interrupting the flat line horizon, I felt the tight coil around my heart relax a little. That green-and-white Turnpike ticket meant we would soon

Nemonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5541559.post-1081262331095173372004-04-06T10:34:00.000-04:002004-04-06T10:41:33.796-04:00

I. Happiness equals Girl plus Gum. I.i. Behind any Happiness and its Gum, a Girl is always lurking. I.ii. That same Happiness, without the Girl, would just be Gum. I.iii. To repeat: Happiness is always the sum of some Girl and her Gum. II. What, then, of a Girl without her Gum? That's No Fun. II.i. And a Girl plus Fun? Gum. II.iii. Therefore, No Fun plus Gum yields Girl, by proposition I, two

Nemonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5541559.post-1079973152611821692004-03-22T10:46:00.000-05:002004-03-22T11:35:00.450-05:00

Of all the fine conveyances that have conducted me from Point A to Point B, perhaps none has been so tranquil, so meditative, as the glass train. Even on an Apache helicopter lilting over the rice paddies--even watching the sun unscroll on the water below through a lens of pot-damage--you still have engine noise to contend with, and the distant possibility that you'll be called to fire this gun

Nemonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5541559.post-1077566980385269482004-02-23T14:56:00.000-05:002004-02-23T15:11:40.733-05:00

I was just a fat little sausage of a paisan' when that big beautiful boat came sailing up the river and into port, I'll never forget it. By way of carrier pigeon the duomo and therefore the whole city had already heard of its new capitano and the heroic exploits thereof but still that hardly prepared us for the sight on a blue day of the white sails puffing out and beneath them, balanced on the

Nemonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5541559.post-1076719996749600832004-02-13T19:52:00.000-05:002004-02-15T11:45:31.780-05:00

Once upon a time, the term “novel” was a catch-all, a descriptor for imaginative works of narrative prose or verse that did not conform to existing genres (e.g. the chronicle, the history, the epic, the fairy tale). In a way, then, the novel has always been experimental, pushing at generic boundaries even as it defined them. Although they may be canonical today, the earliest novels—Don Quixote

Nemonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5541559.post-1076422876123194612004-02-10T09:21:00.000-05:002004-02-10T09:23:03.060-05:00

In the dreariness of February, the anus of the annus, this writer finds himself adrift, as his protagonist so recently was. I hope to post some book reviews this weekend, but we'll see...

Nemonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5541559.post-1075127767711805562004-01-26T09:34:00.000-05:002004-01-26T09:37:39.360-05:00

So long it had been since I’d heard of the boy. Leaves had dropped, snow had fallen in America; still, in my mind’s eye he was adrift at the windless center of the sun-wet sea. Because, having left off with the pirates’ vicious sea-chantey, I was sure it would be either silence or death for our hero—remaining in his barrel until the pirates had accomplished their grim design, or walking the plank

Nemonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5541559.post-1074291071376148562004-01-16T16:52:00.000-05:002004-01-16T17:12:33.810-05:00

The Green Room, with its beanbag chairs and TV/VCR combo and comforting posters of animals and musicians, belonged to us kids, but the Yellow Room was my dad's. It was rare for the door to that room to be open, rarer still for me to find myself in there with him, amid the stacks of coffee-ringed papers. My dad disappeared in there, to sit, I guess, in his green leather swivel chair and type, or

Nemonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5541559.post-1073000620043666722004-01-01T18:39:00.000-05:002004-01-01T18:44:47.186-05:00

Perhaps you’re sitting in Starbucks right now, at a small table all your own, reading this sentence. Me, I’ve been trying for years to avoid Starbucks. I’ve had more success with the actual boycott than with articulating to myself the reasoning behind it. Not that I’m totally sans reasons. Resisting the pull of Starbucks seems like the responsible, if not the radical, thing to do, right? I mean

Nemonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5541559.post-1072231892191684762003-12-23T21:02:00.000-05:002003-12-23T21:16:31.280-05:00

True Story: One winter night in St. Louis, returning unhappily from a trip to somewhere warmer and sweeter, I wound up in a cab driven a Polish man who had been a professor of history in Krakow before fleeing in the early 80s. Of course that's not the first thing he said to me. The first thing he said to me was “Do you read?” I had been staring through the black glass of the back window,

Nemonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5541559.post-1071874747351409282003-12-19T17:55:00.000-05:002003-12-19T18:00:02.263-05:00

Well, I'm off on an odyssey for the next week or so. There are sure to be some New Years reflections here soon, so check back. Until then, let us be like Ebenezer Scrooge; that is, let us do it all, and infinitely more. Peace, people on earth.

Nemonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5541559.post-1071283454220585062003-12-12T21:19:00.000-05:002003-12-12T21:45:01.700-05:00

I’ve always enjoyed the New York Times’ use of the word “Notable.” The phrase “Notable Book,” of course, does not indicate whether the book is notably good, or notably bad. Even better is the word “Intriguing,” as deployed in People’s “Most Intriguing People” List. Not having read more than a dozen books that came out this year, I can’t compile a “favorite books” or “best books” list. But I can

Nemonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5541559.post-1070841648775565812003-12-07T16:51:00.000-05:002003-12-07T19:06:30.450-05:00

In honor of yesterday's trip through a blizzard to the Jersey shore, where the scheduled Springsteen Christmas show was snowed out...and in honor of my being swamped by assignments, applications, and work...and in honor of the season, I present you with this, a festively packaged excerpt from an aborted draft of an essay on the Boss and the Man upstairs, which I've been commissioned to write for

Nemonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5541559.post-1070322776945702652003-12-01T18:52:00.000-05:002003-12-01T18:53:33.373-05:00

Time unveils each new pair of lights cut by black trees to be not what we’ve awaited, the transport to our neighborhoods, but rather the conveyance of others, like us, stooped and eye-weary, prone as we are to error. Of course, there are those differences that give rise to envy: for example, they are in motion and we’re still as telephone poles, hung with books and hoods and baggage. But

Nemonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5541559.post-1069289345565624872003-11-19T19:48:00.000-05:002003-11-19T19:49:30.140-05:00

Do not send our boys over there any images of nude or partially clad women. Iraq is a Muslim country, where nudity or partial cladding is considered immodest. Please respect our hosts! Do not send any pork or pork-related products. Muslims believe that animals with cloven hooves are unfit for human consumption! Yes that includes Bac-Os! Beer, whiskey, and other distilled grain beverages are out

Nemonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5541559.post-1068767284006988132003-11-13T18:43:00.000-05:002003-11-13T18:49:31.420-05:00

Dear Editor, Please accept the enclosed story for publication in your fine review. I trust you’ll find its coming-of-age themes as timeless as the eloquence of its tastefully understated prose. It’s just the kind of thing I know you’ve been searching for, through all these barren years. Don’t be alarmed if you find yourself looking at my name and mumbling quietly: Garth Risk who? Who Risk

Nemonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5541559.post-1067817063639493122003-11-02T18:48:00.000-05:002003-11-02T18:53:26.800-05:00

The new Guided by Voices video is a mash note to none other than Beatle Bob, St. Louis' favorite rumored kleptomaniac and former U.P.S. man. To which we respond just as we did when we saw Bob at shows, especially when they were our shows--even as those less stout of heart complained of the brutality of his elbows, the distraction of his personality, the monomania of his ambitions: You go, girl!

Nemonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5541559.post-1066865314253835782003-10-22T19:27:00.000-04:002003-10-22T19:30:46.033-04:00

This is what happens when you AutoSummarize a Hamlet soliloquy and feed it through Bill Gates' thesaurus. Summary Amid the lobs and arroyos of unpleasant affluence To kick the bucket, to snooze-- 'Tis an accomplishment To give up the ghost, to siesta-- To forty winks--conceivably to hallucinate: ay, there's the massage, There's the regard. The teaser’s damage, the overconfident man's noise

Nemonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5541559.post-1066776286340469852003-10-21T18:42:00.000-04:002003-10-21T18:44:45.866-04:00

Everything from the 40th anniversary issue of the New York Review of Books is available free online at www.nybooks.com. If you've never had either the time, or money, or the tolerance for pretentious intellecutalism, to read the New York Review, you've been missing a lot of great, if inessential stuff, as well as a lot of crap. In the great category, check out Joan Didion's piece on Bush II.

Nemonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5541559.post-1066701049369033702003-10-20T21:45:00.000-04:002003-10-20T21:50:49.590-04:00

There are three types of bad movie: bad bad (Maid to Order), so-bad-it's-good (To Grandmother's House We Go), and, beyond that, so-bad-it's-fascinating. "Kill Bill," ostentatiously, well, billed as "The 4th Film By Quentin Tarantino," transgresses these boundaries, as well as many others. At times, it's just awful. At other times, it's fantastic. Ultimately, however, both the ridiculous and the

Nemonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5541559.post-1066052635778465482003-10-13T09:18:00.000-04:002003-10-13T09:43:55.503-04:00

One foine day a-poiratin' what did I see? (Yo, ho, blow the man down) But a sweet Arab schooner a-sailin' for me! (Yo, ho, blow the man down) Heavy with hogsheads and red pepperpots (Yo, ho, blow the man down) To could give the immaculate Herself the trots! (Yo, ho, blow the man down) Now here's this first mate with his second-class hag. (Yo, ho, blow the man down) I'll flash 'em my cutlass if

Nemonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5541559.post-1065652682341893092003-10-08T18:31:00.000-04:002003-10-08T18:38:01.953-04:00

Well, it's nice to see the democratic process returned, via bloodless coup, to the hands of those for whom it was designed: the insanely wealthy and those practiced in the thespian arts. You can say what you want about Arnold, but California just got the governor she deserved. It kind of makes you wonder where else the Republicans might want to spread the progressive principles they've always

Nemonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5541559.post-1065060704472753102003-10-01T22:08:00.000-04:002003-10-04T15:21:40.296-04:00

First, a confession: I approached Jonathan Lethem’s The Fortress of Solitude with high expectations--not impossibly high, but perhaps high enough to bias my reaction to the novel. I first learned that a new Lethem book was forthcoming from a contributor’s note in Harper’s, where Lethem this spring published a wonderful essay on the nearly forgotten critic Edward Dahlberg. I added “The Fortress of

Nemonoreply@blogger.com