I am a 1957 Chevy

Let me count the ways a classic Chevy is superior I bought a 2022 Honda recently because of all the safety features: backup camera, lane drift warning, blue-tooth enabled radio/sound system/map finding. It gets good mileage and should last a … Read More

Great Writer of Fear, Shirley Jackson

Psychobiography, haunting, and women’s mags The best opening paragraph in writing is often agreed to be from Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle: “”My name is Mary Katherine Blackwood. I am eighteen years old, and I live with my sister … Read More

Don’t Get Admitted to the Hospital

Unless you need critical care, opt for hospital-at-home The Great Human Flood, I thought, as I leaned back in the chair of the emergency department waiting room. I probably looked like them — disheveled, dressed in sweats or thrown-together clothes, … Read More

A Phone Call to Harry Belafonte

Belafonte funded the Civil Rights Movement The phone rang and my friend answered it. The call was from Harry Belafonte, and though my friend rarely interrupted our time together to take a phone call, Harry was an exception. My friend … Read More

Artificial Stupidity is Calling Me

When the machines take over It’s dinner time. I can tell, because my phone starts ringing incessantly. With wrong numbers from Door Dash. I figured out a month ago that Door Dash had listed my private cell phone number, mistakenly, … Read More

Writing Wants Funny

For any nattering nabobs of negativity… The public reading was unrelentingly grim. Very good writing, perhaps, but the two readers’ subject matters were child abuse, death, and an apocalyptic view of global warming. They should have served cyanide-laced Kool-Aid at … Read More

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