What issues or fears keep you up at night? Here's my list, limited to the top 100...
Culture
What Happens When Writers Don’t Write?
When I write, the practice is all consuming and thrilling and exhausting. But there are times when I want to read, and reading is all consuming and thrilling and exhausting, too.
Featured
“Diet Mountain Dew” [Yet Another Version]
Diet mountain dew, baby, New York City Have you ever seen a girl so pretty? Do you think we'll be in love forever? Do you think we'll be in love?
Ulysses: All Parents Damage Their Kids
They strolled leisurely to Birgit’s apartment and talked about their children. Perhaps for the first time today, Hopper relaxed. He admired the lengths to which Charlize went to protect her children from all the ways that parents encourage and feed their children’s paranoia and neuroses. “All parents damage their kids,” she said. “I just want to keep that damage to a minimum.”
That Funny Feeling (Boomer Version)
Richard Nixon, Betty Draper, Dien Bien Phu Coronavirus, Walter Cronkite, Star Wars, 2 Live Crew Edmund Muskie, Simone Biles, rising student debt Napalm Children, Civil Rights, brand new cigarette There it is again, that funny feeling That funny feeling
Featured
Goodbye, Pandemic Ed
As the pandemic hit the East Coast, my barber shop closed. At the same time, people began to improvise masks. I vowed not to cut my hair again until an efficacious vaccine was running through Dr. Fauci’s and my veins. I was able to amuse myself in many ways, among them my "art project": creating a monthly “Hair and Mask Update” on social media.
Another Day
Over every dinner – by now well over 365 meals -- my wife and I make a toast. We look each other in the eye, smile wistfully, and say, “another day.” We have survived one more day. More importantly, we are making plans, looking forward to what tomorrow brings, and continuing to manage risks in a world that has always tried to kill us.
Featured
God is a Middle-Aged Woman
“God is a Middle-Aged Woman” was originally recorded by Ezra Furman and the Harpoons in 2007. Ezra Furman was 21 years old. This song always astonished me, partly because of the youth of its composer and partly because of its depth and wisdom.
Goodbye to All That
The veils of memory tend to obscure the beginnings of things, but for the solitary soul with any imagination, there is no end to the variety of possible endings to a story. The reason or reasons I ended up in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, in 1990 are subject to the whims of marriage and family, the conveniences of geography and transportation, and advances in technology, mixed with the fear of the unknown. Replaying in my mind all the scenarios for my departure from Harrisburg nearly three decades later leaves me certain now, from the moment I arrived in Pennsylvania’s capital city from New York, that I would be leaving.
Notes on The Only Child
Several years ago, the mother of a young son asked me about the experiences of being an only child. She was considering whether or not to have another child; she was concerned that being an “only” would present challenges to her son that could be alleviated by having a sibling.
Third Ed Novak 