Richard Brautigan once observed that “It’s really something to have fame put its feathery crowbar under your rock and then upward to the light to release you, along with seven grubs and a sow bug.”…
Posts published in “Essays”
When my father died five years ago, my siblings and I did not hold a memorial service in his honor. We were each of us so wounded by our father’s incessant criticism and disapproval of…
Some years back, when I was doing location rewrites on a movie, I was cornered on the set by an anguished limo driver. We were in a Spanish-speaking nation, and my command of that loving…
On April 20 there’s a memorial for Christopher Hitchens at the Cooper Union in Manhattan. There’s a PEN tribute, also in Manhattan, on April 30. Here’s my own little envoi. The regular Diary, tumbrils and…
Given the choice, I'd prefer the real Stalinism over the hippie version prevalent on the Northcoast, no better example of which was Monday night's (April 2nd) Women's Voices talk program on KZYX, itself, along with…
This has been a bad year for grand restaurants in the three- to four-star range and the clang of their closing doors raises the question — is the whole gastro-frenzy that stirred into life in…
A lot of Americans are in physical pain. A lot of Americans are addicted to prescription pain medications. The two populations overlap, but are not the same. And therein lies a huge and growing problem.…