Category Archives: Tales Out of School

Tales Out of School

Torrid Zone Follies

　

    A friend recently visited Costa Rica. Let’s call him, ah, Warren. We attended university together. Like many of the acquaintances made then, Warren became one of my closest associates.

    Strange thing is almost all of those undergraduate buddies have become and remain closer than most of my childhood friends. The latter group was bound from nursery school through high school. Yet our first September apart all the permanence fractured. Makes me wonder is that the world or was it just us.

    Anyway, hard as Warren works his Costa Rican vacation was fully deserved. Poor fellow almost has a mania for toil. Continue reading Torrid Zone Follies →

Tales Out of School

Roll Over Gutenberg and Tell Your Printers Devil the News!

    Tough about Borders Books, eh. Guess they never should’ve swallowed Brentano’s. That’s a specific New York reference for New Yorkers of certain ages.

    We readers should mourn Borders diminishment. Coupled with vanishing independent bookstores, fewer national outlets will limit variety. Less shelf space means filling what remains with more common titles and crowding out the new, experimental or just plain weird.

    Might Borders’ survival mean selling Glenn Beck coloring books? Given the addled masses lapping up his daily misinformation, and a struggling book chain looking to turn quick, immense, tidy profits, how soon until corporate interests begin offering brain-dead America’s favorite savant’s wigwams and drawings for his audience’s pleasure?

    Naturally with Beck scribbling inside the lines isn’t as important as smoking peyote-infused crayons. Continue reading Roll Over Gutenberg and Tell Your Printers Devil the News! →

Tales Out of School

Behind the Curtain

    Why the pen name? Why the whole establishment of an entirely separate entity? Why isn’t the ebook’s author visible?

    Does Reveries (http://www.amazon.com/Reveries-ebook/dp/B004H8G1KO/) embarrass me? Am I ashamed of publishing so much sexual detail?

    Those were questions from the clique to whom I devulged my nom de porn and output.

    The wise guy response: Hey. Why so many questions?

    But it was good to have friends challenge me. What better preparation exists for the inevitable tight-assed abstainers, the righteous who advertise their piety instead of demonstrate virtue, and the extreme hardcore types who wonder whether procreative relations are necessary sinning? 

    Recently, a collar of New York City clerics and laity convened a press conference. They decried the high number of abortions within the five boroughs. Looking upon the clammy assemblage, I noticed a paucity of women. Mostly men complained about a condition unique to the second sex. Sincere as every male in that room could’ve sworn himself, not a one had first-hand knowledge regarding menstruation, ovulation or gestation. 

    Especially the ones who’d taken celibacy vows. A-hem, instead of amen. Continue reading Behind the Curtain →