Seasonal Weather

When you can run around half-naked, it’s different. I think. Anyway it is different in southern California. Every time I visit, their lack of giving a shit impresses me. I read Joan Didion, on California: it has to work there, she says, because there is nowhere else. You are on the edge there. Which explains better […]

Levels

I was seated right next to someone, although there were plenty of seats at the counter. “I taught high school for eleven years,” I said, instead of saying, “I am a teacher,” or, “I am a writer.” In Kansas City, when I say I am a writer, I think people find me eccentric. In New York, I’m […]

Small Animals

I thought Sardi’s was a tourist trap. And I thought I could not afford it. My way of going to see Broadway shows has always been to eat a slice of pizza beforehand, because after paying for a ticket that is all that seems prudent. I happened to be meeting a friend in Times Square, […]

What It Cost

My favorite thing at the Brooklyn Historical Society was the tile floor. The same people who put in the floor worked on the Capitol. The building also has huge terra cotta busts on the outside, Columbus, Shakespeare, Ben Franklin. The Brooklyn Historical Society is, itself, a National Historic Landmark. For whatever sense that makes. The […]