I am so not down with this shit. Sigh... So I was amazed how on Facebook yesterday, so many more people my age were lamenting John Lennon’s death than the anniversary of Pearl Harbor. Are the two events even roughlyequivalent? I’ll out myself here: I’m not a John Lennon fan. I like some of the musical stuff he did while he was jostling with McCartney for room under the Beatles umbrella ...
Over the interstates and through the woods to Aunt Lucinda’s house we go... And had a thoroughly delightful – well nigh Dickensian – Turkey Day too. I adore Lucinda and always have since the day she first materialized on my doorstep in Oakland back when I was vastly pregnant with Robin. I asked, “Are you vetting me?” She laughed and said, “I suppose I am. Her son Brian is the most affable...
I’m thinking of Nabokov, of course. Of index cards and diaspora. Imagining one afternoon at 802 E. Seneca Street in the early 1950’s... Early spring because I can’t remember the exact story, and in any event it’s probably apocryphal: Nabokov was burning the manuscript of Lolita . In photographs Nabokov looks more like a carpet salesman than the suave expatriate Humbert Humbert. He’s ...
I knew it was fall, but didn’t know it was fall till we broke down in Mt. Gilead, Ohio. Main street in that forlorn little town was adrift under dying orange leaves. There are no seasons in California – oh, sure, CA die-hards will natter about Mediterranean climate and November rainstorms, but really that’s atmosphere, not season. In the west, there’s no sense of Nature dying. No real ...
For the first time in months the RV broke down yesterday, this time somewhere on a freeway that cuts through the Ozark wilderness between Fort Smith and Fayette. Ben skidded to a stop on the shoulder of the road, I pulled in my car in back of him. My heart was racing two hundred beats per minute: I really, really did not want to deal with car trouble though I suppose it’s inevitable when ...
JUMP : Hugo, OK --> Fort Smith, Arkansas: approx. 210 miles Every Greyhound bus station in America is on 7th Street, right next to the old post office. Or used to be, back in the days when there were Greyhound bus stations and 7th Streets – now, of course, small cities are attempting to jumpstart their economies by revitalizing their downtowns, and that means a lot of civic buildings and ...
Chance cut it short. Canceled the last two dates of the season. Claimed it was on account of the lousy weather but I think it was because he was tired, dead tired. Tired of the ugly towns we’d been playing, tired of the lousy turnouts. Tired of chasing the Fisher King in his cheap clown suit long after the summer was through. He was losing money too, of course. But it was more about being ...
... next month. I think a mass church outing is on the cards - to go see a vampire film - yes, we're aware of the irony. Oh and I have to say a huge massive thank you to mallorys_camera who has made DD's century (I kid you not), by photoshopping her into a picture with Edward Cullen. There can be no higher praise from DD than complete speechlessness. This girl rarely shuts up. All my...
How did I miss last weekend’s Balloon Boy mishegaas ? Just lucky, I guess. Maybe if I pretended to push RTT into the lion cage, I could interest TLC – or even Mark Burnett! – into producing a reality show starring ME ME ME ME and that secondary cast of thousands who wanna be my friends on Facebook. Speaking of RTT – today’s his fifteenth birthday. Happy birthday, Robin! I love you more ...
In the piney woods behind the Carson & Barnes elephant sanctuary (100 acres, 24 elephants) Milo sniffed out an old box turtle. I would have left him there, but Ben – ever the reptile freak – promptlypocketed him and brought him home to show Robin. He’s been here ever since, seemingly happily esconced in a newspaper-lined box nibbling on bits of banana and green apple. Robin named him “Nimoy...
