Curveball

    What happens to you doesn't belong to you, only half concerns you. It's not yours. Not yours only. - Claudia Rankine, qtd. in Tayari Jones' An American Marriage If you pay attention to such things, you may have noticed that many books and movies, before launching into their primary narrative, have a little section--a…

Written in the Stars

People are starting to get sick of a life lived so intensely on the grid. They wish for more anonymity online. They're experiencing fatigue with ebooks, with dating apps, with social media. They're craving something else in this era of quantified selves, and tracked locations, and indexed answers to every possible question. Except, perhaps the…

Mambo Italiano

Volare, oh oh Cantare, oh oh oh oh Let's fly way up to the clouds Away from the maddening crowds We can sing in the glow of a star that I know of Where lovers enjoy peace of mind Let us leave the confusion and all disillusion behind Just like bird of a feather, a…

Dog Days of Summer

Herbal and verbal, Daniel said. Language is like poppies. It just takes something to churn the earth round them up, and when it does up come the sleeping words, bright red, fresh, blowing about. Then the seedheads rattle, the seeds fall out. Then there's even more language waiting to come up. -Ali Smith (Autumn) Almost…

Year, Interrupted

2016 has been a strange year so far: a blizzard, a tornado watch, the rise of Trump, the death of my  computer, a wedding! I keep thinking that I've finally found my footing, that a return to normalcy is nigh, but then I somehow end up tripping over my own two feet in snow that…

Finding Comfort in Tofu

When people enter the kitchen, they often drag their childhood in with them. I was brought up on English children's books, in which teatime and cottage life play an important role. These formed my earliest idea of comfort: a tea table in a cozy cottage. As an adult, I have reinforced these childhood notions by…