So Educated

I read online that Spike Lee was having people over because Prince had died. I found my way over and there were a bunch of people standing around, slowly closing the street like an artery plaquing. People had cameras, there were trucks with satellites on them, and one big light. I had kind of thought […]

Distance

When I was zipping through a practice exam to use with my students, I slowed way down to read Ralph Ellison. I don’t really know anything about him. I’ve never read Invisible Man. Strange as it seemed, I was enjoying reading a passage on a test. I immediately went back and ordered it from Amazon, […]

Circles

Everyone was as still for Bach as they were bouncy for Al Green. As rabidly as I’d danced to the Jackson 5 Saturday night, I sat still for Bach on Sunday. I closed my eyes, even. Pop music goes forward, neatly, in a way you expect, and it reinforces what you want and where you […]

Butterfly

Without gooey, wet music, nonfiction can get dry and flaky. Its author may also become too fact-heavy, which feels sort of like having eaten too much white rice. Tonight I read a survival strategy of a favorite writer: listen to opera when you write nonfiction. Makes sense. They’re cranking out the same goddamn “La Boheme,” […]