I didn’t vault happily into the New Year, but slunk into it by way of the cinema, on January 1st taking in a double bill whose two soundtracks offered huge contrasts with another — a…
Posts published in “Essays”
Putting together the AVA every week is comparable to painting bridges. As soon as you’re done with one week, you’re starting on the next one. Most of it is collecting electronic data — the main typing task nowadays is entering prisoner letters because they’re still using pen and paper to communicate. There is a lot to go through.
(A Cautionary Tale) — In the summer of 2004 Tall Bobby and I were holding down the graveyard shift at Denny's in Fort Bragg, a perfect gig for someone of my nocturnal inclinations and propensity…
Elizabeth is an unattractive city in the armpit of northern New Jersey. Some important neighboring cities are Newark, with which it shares a seaport; Linden, with which it shares a refinery; Bayonne, with which it…
The gentle winter sun is smiling on dozens of migrant ducks sharing the heart of the peaceful cove with grebes and cormorants, while a steady stream of voluble tourists rushes by me. Two big pelicans glide into view, circle the assembly of bobbing ducks and grebes, and make splash landings quite close to shore.
Winter hovers outside; the month of December in the Ohio Valley turned out mild and dark with drizzly overcast days and almost no sunshine. It's the time for reflection, I tell myself as I recline…
In retrospect, the transaction was kind of strange. But then again, aren’t they usually a bit odd when they originate from Craigslist? It certainly wasn’t strange enough to tip me off that $160 of the…
I found myself on the grassy series of knobs headed uphill into dark woods, the old stage coach route which picked out a somewhat more precarious path along the coastal bluffs than the present highway,…
Flocks of sandhill cranes fly overhead during the day, millions of the birds wintering in our river valley. They choose more or less V formations, but not as pronounced as the Canada geese do. The…