The Value of Typing Slower
I once told a university professor that when doing creative writing I tended to write to the end of a sheet of paper and stop. He frowned and advised me to get longer paper . . .
We Think We Know Everything
The world’s biggest problem may be that people are so sure of themselves. It seems increasingly clear to me that no one really knows anything for certain. We have published a relatively small number of books about how we think our world works...
The Stowaway
I could not post this until now, The captain would have had a cow, Upon the heave, surge and sway, I was a lonely stowaway . . .
The Fog Hides the Sun
Last night from my hotel bed high above the Mississippi, as a thunderstorm worked overhead, I heard, no, not just heard, felt, ship captains lay on fog horns to warn of their passage ‘round the Mississippi River bend at New Orleans. Be warned . ...
A Mardi Gras Wonderland
I awoke this morning to a Mardi Gras wonderland, surrounded by bead bags in the process of being filled to the brim. Recycled cardboard boxes and a mountain of cellophane circulated under foot. The bags of secret Krewe of Muses wonders pictured...
A Few Pre-Mardi Gras Notes
General observation: Writers often sit down at a keyboard and come up with thoughts that had never occurred to them before. Their own words surprise them. Mardi Gras does that to people; it brings to the surface the weird and creative in whoever...
Save the Artists, Musicians and Weirdos
In the Faubourg Marigny neighborhood of New Orleans, you can tell natives from visitors and newcomers by the way they act at parades. The fresh ones are the skinny, 5-foot, 10-inch-tall (most of them – it’s odd) white guys with short hair and...
Hope Lives at a Chain Hotel
I am in the lobby of a Metairie, La., hotel, reading while Lisa performs whatever sorcery and alchemy women do in powder rooms before getting together with other women at fancy places. I’m used to it by now, but I was still unsettled this morning...
Inscriptions Found in Used Books
I am looking through volumes of literary criticism previously frowned upon by college students desperate to know things like how far into Joyce’s “Ulysses” they had to read before feeling justified in giving up. Some of these pages have...
The No-Call Heard Round the World
I see all these links about who the Saints should draft or keep or pick up next year, but right now I don’t have a next year of football in my head. I haven’t looked at a single post about next year – not after the outrageous pass interference...
Going to Jake’s Funeral
I am parked at the McDonald’s in Rayne, La., in the heart of Acadiana, under a clear, light blue sky, listening to Cajun French music on the radio, making my way east to Metairie, La., to attend a funeral. The deceased was an offshore engineer I...
Who to Be Nice to at the Office
In any organization, be nice to the following three people . . .