The tropical warmth enveloped us as we exited the aircraft. I resisted the temptation to emulate the papist act of kneeling down and kissing the tarmac. I had already established my eccentricity with our pleasant Costa Rican guide by asking her to translate the Spanish masthead of your beloved weekly newspaper. (It turned out to be a common slogan in the land where Che Guevara has been all but deified.)
Posts published in “Essays”
Reading about the murder of twelve people and the wounding of eight others at the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, and the continuing violence as the murderers have taken hostages in two locations in Paris, I recall Satan in Mark Twain’s The Mysterious Stranger saying, “No sane man can be happy, for to him life is real, and he sees what a fearful thing it is.”
The first live stage performance of Into the Woods that I ever saw was a production by the Davis Musical Theatre Company during the summer of 1990. My two sons (then ages 7 and 10)…
Hundreds of new laws will go into effect in California throughout the year in 2015, including a long-overdue one that will allow undocumented immigrants to obtain a driver’s license starting Friday. DRIVER’S LICENSES FOR UNDOCUMENTED…
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…
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.