After the first commemoration of the September 11th attacks, I started observing them with less rigor.
I’d known World Trade Center victims. Hard not to have if one was a New Yorker. Several were work acquaintances. Two were social acquaintances. Stat Man and the Michigan Guy. The first I’d known over 10 years, the second maybe 14 months at most. Yet both have settled in the same firmament of memory. Continue reading Some Days Before
Watching President Joe Biden extract the West from a place it never should’ve implanted a lasting footprint into reminds of how my father’s generation would’ve solved a crap situation. Continue reading Leaving Berserkistan
Dick Cheney is doing a fine job exhibiting chutzpah to Gentiles.
Given the former vice president’s dismal prognostication history, it would’ve seemed a slam dunk that once he slunk into private life his public utterances might’ve been few. Instead, he’s turned his dismal tenure into a sort of victory lap. Continue reading Author of Disaster
With severe apologies to Andre Gide …
Does distance improve perception? Well, in my case perhaps 2400 miles have clarified a few escapades.
Relocated now to Las Vegas (too early to claim “settled”), several scenes and the actors upon those now far away New York stages stalk under brighter light. Those acts having concluded years ago, they can today be reckoned through lengthy contemplation.
Nothing has prepared me for the last two years. Disruption. Demise. Dislocation. Ready for such life occurrences as we swear, aren’t we forever caught out by these upheavals? Maneuver as best we can, coping is the best one can hope.
July 5th begins summer’s great trench. Nothing but sweltering discomfort punctured by periods of merciful relief.
There is a New Yorker magazine cover which aptly suits these dog days. On it a grinning rubicund sun wipes sweat off his brow while beneath him broiling on the way to burning beachgoers merry themselves towards heatstroke.
The best part of this season for me? Beer. Beer is colder these days than during winter. Continue reading The Wonder Bar
My next door neighbor will be moving out soon. He and his rambunctious visitors won’t be missed.
A foreign exchange student, he likely pursued some technical degree. Others residing at this address welcomed him. Not me.
Mind, nothing personal, but he must’ve found me intimidating. Purposely. Clearly intentionally.
Admittedly, I did absolutely nothing to invite him. I reserved my friendliness. Why? The noise. His and his friends’ lack of consideration. Despite his alien culture, he should’ve arrived equipped with a modicum of deference. At least until he understood the parameters of his new abode. Were the shoe on the other foot, that’s what I would’ve done.
Had he just done that little bit, I, in turn, would’ve been more than cordial towards him.
Bedlam aside, along with his general disregard of comportment, other residents who share this place more than made up for my estrangement.
Of course they would. He and his friends were probably the first Muslim Arabs they ever met. Continue reading Left Behind with the Magyar