My Impending Catastrophe
Today, L.A. is deep into its late summer routines. Kids are back in school. Labor Day is already forgotten. As…
Daybook
While Ashbery Dies, I Read Sandburg
The week John Ashberry dies, I read Carl Sandburg’s Wind Song. Ashbery is, for the time being, celebrated. Sandburg, once…
Imperfection
Few of us will tolerate a lousy family photo. These days, the marginal cost of a bad shot is exactly…
The Stillborn Photograph
The story is this: Mary bore the twin sons in the shopfront’s upstairs bedroom. She and her husband Will named one…
Swimming Between Two Cities
Tomas Tranströmer’s poem, “Two Cities” sticks with me: On each side of the strait, two cities one blacked out, occupied…
What Was Eclipsed?
A theme emerged from the week’s coverage of the eclipse: that on the morning of August 21, as darkness swept across…
Today We Got Death Threats
My daughter called me, frantic, this afternoon. Someone had left a message on the landline answering machine, directed at my…
Memory, from Yugoslavia to Charlottesville
Over the past week, I’ve been reading Serbian writer Nina Zivancevic’s Inside & Outside of Byzantium, a 1994 collection that…
Gods and Gastropods
It is 1968. I am eleven years old. In the last few months, I have begun reorganizing my late childhood,…
Dunkirk and Dreamtime
Note: This content contains spoilers. A few weeks ago, YR and RB invited me along to the Arclight for a…
Left Write & Centaur 