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Posts published by “Erik S. McMahon”

Controversial Caramels

Gleaming hogs, chopped Harleys all, were parked in a precise row, south of the Cliff House. Sonny Barger, still Head Guy of the Hell’s Angels…

Classroom Cruelty

Statistics Assault us constantly, and are absorbed, even ones that, on their face, seem far-fetched. Two-thirds of high-school students can’t identify the United States, handed…

Ash Wednesday (2003)

I’d been to Mexico eight, maybe nine times, not counting border towns; spots like Puerto Vallarta, Manzanillo, Zihuatenejo, Oaxaca, and Cancun. I had seen the…

C.P.W. ’65 / 45rpm

I hadn’t ever heard “feedback,” in a musical sense, before, but the howling that kick-started the Beatles’ ‘I Feel Fine’ was an instant hit with…

Cellar

It was referred to as the cellar, never called a “basement,” though I’m not sure yet I understand what distinguishes them. You could get down…

Snow

Pale-jointed knuckles grip the wheel. Squinting, trying to detect shapes of any kind beyond your windscreen. This rates as a full-bore white-out. Zero visibility. Now…

Book Review: The Culinary Underbelly

It's tough enough for a stage comedian to make you laugh out loud; more remarkable still when a supposedly comic movie does so. Rarest of…

They Said I’d Never Make A Fortune

So many cubes of braised tofu, countless Hunan broccoli specials; turned out they could legitimately be written off and called research. Frequenting of Sino-American eateries,…

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