LOL Stands for “Labor of Love,” Right?
September 10, 2007
Filed in: The Way We Live Now
The Fall 07 Brain,Child is out and about in the world, meaning in print and now online. Yay.
I wrote an essay for the very first issue, back in I think it was 1902, when my ovaries were still wearing miniskirts and tank tops. Since then, I’ve been very, very slowly reeled in, till this last...
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On the Road, In Your Face
September 05, 2007
Filed in: The Way We Live Now
Speaking of 50ths, On the Road was published 50 years ago today. There have been about 2 bazillion words already published on the subject of the anniversary, so I’ll try to keep my remarks brief and personal.
Like many, many other readers of On the Road, maybe all of them?, I fell in love with...
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American Landscape #55
August 31, 2007
Filed in: The Way We Live Now
I don’t have a book yet, because I don’t have a book contract, because I haven’t written the freaking proposal, but never mind any of those petty details: I have a cover for The 50th State!
Take a look at this. [pauses]
Isn’t it beautiful? Haunting and sad and wistful? I love it. It’s by
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Despairful
August 27, 2007
Filed in: The Way We Live Now
Did you read the front-page story in the Times yesterday about the pollution in China? Yeah, me neither. I couldn’t bear it. I read the hed and decks and picture captions, and then squinted here and there at a paragraph or two. But it’s really too awful a story to swallow all at once. Or maybe...
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Thank You Joanne
August 26, 2007
Filed in: The Home Front, The Way We Live Now
In November of 1999, a FedEx truck pulled up to our old house in Beverly and delivered a late birthday present to C, who had just turned 6. I stashed it away, mistakenly thinking it was an early Christmas present.
But late one afternoon--as we were playing in our dark, skanky basement where W,...
