I love the Olympics. Always have. That’s not to say I sit glued nose-to-the-TV (don’t wanna ruin my eyes, after all) the whole time. But I do check the NBC Olympics website […]

The economy slows like a freight train out of fuel: creaky, sluggish, cumbersome–losing speed on the track until finally, with a pitiful puff of smoke, it’ll come to a complete stop …
Ok, that’s dramatic, I […]

“I’m from Alabama,” he said. “I’m staying with my cousin for a few weeks.” He nodded behind him, two hundred yards down the road, to a little trailer sitting under the trees.
“It’s good […]

Tear down this lake, stomp and mud
Swallow the fish, gut the geese.
And the redworm nightcrawler:
such a savage name
nightcrawler
for a curling S on a fishhook.
Stomp and mud, drain this lake
and snap the necks: shout
“Over!”
I once knew […]

Two summers ago:
We’d been Upstate for a week in the Adirondacks, 5 days in a little cabin on Long Lake.
Upon our Big City return when we climbed the stairs and unslipped the deadbolt and threw […]

July 4: the Brooklyn night sky was explosive, China Town fireworks blowing like strobe light umbrellas in all directions.
And the occasional gunshot, too, which made me duck below the roofline and wait.
Then the Macy’s blowout: […]

Long ago we carted a camping grill up to the roof of Jetta’s building.  
Duck out the window, one leg first, head under the frame, then up the rusted fire escape and there you have all […]

I had this professor in college, Dr. S, who liked for us always to “juxtapose” things. I must admit—at the time, I didn’t really understand the word. But I did what she asked, […]

Elvis Costello slings more Cool than just about anybody I’ve seen, and his show at the Tennessee Theatre was killer—but I’m a people watcher at heart, and the Elvis crowd was one for the books.
To […]

Greasy Boy shot me a text Friday morning: “Got two tickets for Smokies tonight. Wanna go?”
I can’t stand watching baseball on TV, but live, in the stadium, a kraut-smothered dog and a frosty brew—that’s […]