Fiction, Writing, Articles, Essays, Reviews.
The crabapple tree burst this year with so much round ruby fruit that its branches sagged low enough from the weight I had to duck under every time I went out to the shed or to empty the compost bucket, so low that the branches interfered with our clothesline, and now the ornery tree is getting extra laughs by making a concerted effort to toss a berry or two or three on my head when I walk...
Timshel is a Hebrew word that means “thou mayest.” It implies choice, uncertainty, and possibility, as opposed to “thou shalt” or “thou will” which are commands that imply inevitability. The concept of timshel is at the thematic heart of John Steinbeck’s East of Eden. About a year ago I read Steinbeck’s stunning and devastating The Grapes of Wrath (review here). This year, it was East of...
I've come to watch a waterfallEnjoy birds and watch them wingSo please stop interrupting meWith so-called important thingsAll I ask is solitudeDon't need your rude intrusionsI'll hold my ears so I don't hearYour attempts to cause confusionGonna have a whiskeyMaybe drop a magic pillTake a deep and calming breathTo get your voice to chillI'm just here to write some wordsTo read a poem without...
Every week, I pick up donated food from a neighbor’s house, and I drive around Albany and Troy stocking free food refrigerators. Sometimes I have enough food for three refrigerators, sometimes six. There are eight fridges operating in the area. Free Food Fridge Albany is an all-volunteer organization that partners with community members, farmers, restaurants, and grocery stores to acquire food...
Six of us are out for dinner at a favorite restaurant, and the fascinating conversation turns to air fryers. Others at our table praise the magnificence of this cooking appliance. You can roast chicken or salmon, cook potatoes, make bacon—prepare almost any food you would in an oven, on a grill, or stovetop, while using less oil and taking less time. Still, I remained unimpressed. My comment was...
Goldenrod: a signifier of fading summer, a harbinger of approaching autumn. It’s seemingly everywhere this September: every roadside, every field, every meadow, even in my yard, the plethora of yellow blooms like paint strokes from Van Gogh, as bursting with color and chaos as his irises. It’s been about a half dozen years since I allowed a fat patch of my back lawn to return to nature. The first...
I grew up in Buffalo, an industrial port city on the western shores of Lake Erie and the mouth of the Niagara River. The river, after tumbling over a certain famous waterfall and meandering for another 10 miles or so, empties into Lake Ontario. From an early age I could situate these two lakes—in fact, all of the Great Lakes, and could rattle off their names: Erie, Ontario, Huron, Michigan...
In fiction, theater, and film, there is a narrative convention called the fourth wall. It is an imaginary barrier between the characters and the audience. The characters and the story play out without any awareness that an audience exists. The fourth wall has its origins in theater, where three physical walls (right, left, rear) make up the stage, and the invisible wall stands between the cast...
Do you get a handful, maybe a dozen days, like this in your life? When the stars shine for you, and problems both profound and petty melt away, and an extraordinary joy fills your entire being. How often does that happen? I got one of those days last weekend when my daughter Julia married David—the other David. To not only see my child wrapped securely in a promise of mutual devotion and love...
So far, the climate change deniers and skeptics haven’t cared that the Arctic has warmed by roughly 3°C (5.4°F) since the start of the Industrial Revolution. Or they don’t believe that recent surface air temperatures have reached record highs, and summer temperatures in parts of the region have even spiked above 90°F. The “drill-baby-drill-wind-turbines-eat-birds-solar-is-ugly” crowd has no...
On my way into Canada via the Peace Bridge in Buffalo, I stopped at the duty-free shop on the U.S. side of the border. I needed a bottle of gin because it’s gin and tonic weather at the cottage. As I was about to pay, this wonderful treat caught my eye. It was the Make America Great Again candy bar, featuring a photograph of the 47th President of the United States in his “Scowling Fist-Raised...
When you check a movie start time at one of those big chain theaters, add thirty minutes to accommodate an endless stream of boring commercials and disappointing previews, and then you have the real movie start time. That’s why we got to the theater a half an hour after the scheduled start time to see The Odyssey in an IMAX theater. We walked in just as the first scene began—perfect timing!— but...
There are six of us. We are three couples and all close friends. One couple has a waterfront house on the eastern shore of Lake Evient with a long view of the lake and the sunset behind the distant hills. The other two live closer to town center, in coveted neighborhoods, in quality houses, one a gleaming white Dutch Colonial with green shutters, the other an historic Prairie-style house designed...
Last night, I lay awake for a long time, concentrating hard, scanning my memory bank in an attempt to excavate a new detail about my mom, Irene Klein. Today is her birthday. She would have been 102 years old, but she died more than 40 years ago when I was 24. I wanted to remember something new about her, a long-forgotten conversation or moment that meant something to me. But there’s nothing there...
George Eliot was the pen name for the nineteenth-century novelist Mary Ann Evans. She wasn’t the only woman writer of that century who used a male pseudonym. The Brontë sisters (Charlotte, Emily, Anne) all did, while Jane Austen published her books anonymously. Evans used the name George Eliot because she wanted her novels to be taken seriously at a time when women writers reputedly wrote only...
It was almost exactly five years ago when our veterinarian gave us a distressing verdict on our beloved cat, Pumpkin. He had mouth cancer, and probably only had a few months left. Those few months passed, and Pumpkin was still with us, but winter was coming, and so I went out back and dug a grave for him knowing the time was near and the ground about to freeze. Pumpkin was outside on the patio at...
I guess I chose to live in the suburbs. Today is the 30th anniversary of moving into our house. At the time we purchased the house, we didn’t consider how long we might live here. We’d been married two years, had no kids, and generally believed this was our first, or starter, house. It’s a simple structure, Cape Cod style, on the smaller side, with a two-sided fireplace, a lot of roof, and...
In honor of all fathers on this Father’s Day, I annually update this post of dad lessons I’ve learned. As time passes, these lessons feel more relevant and continue to guide my evolving role as a father now that my kids have become independent adults. There’s no expertise behind these lessons, only my own fumbling and humbling experiences. 1. Always Be On Call First and foremost—your children are...
We hear a lot about the negative effects of doomscrolling on the web and social media—spending excessive time consuming content, particularly negative news or user-generated schlock. But here’s my online feed at its finest: finding out that the artist David Hockney passed away at age 88, and then rediscovering how much I loved his art. Hockney, who worked as a painter, photographer, and later as...
I don’t consider myself a skilled or talented gardener. I don’t remember the names of plants or when they bloom or what goes with what. But we have a front and back yard, and therefore we have to do something. Harriet and I consult, and then we work. Move a sapling here, plant a bush there, perennials in this spot, annuals in that one, let that part of the lawn go wild, give the milkweed free...
