I thought it would be a good idea to do this again, to read James Joyces’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. But instead, I’ve gotten wrapped around the axle with the author, his conflicts with the… Read More ›
Memoir
Can you be interesting every day?
I can’t be anything every day, let alone interesting. But it’s a good challenge: can I devote 15 minutes a day to record something interesting about my life? Is there something worth sharing, every day? I came to this after… Read More ›
Earthquake
A guy shouted at us, Get away from the building! My boss was pale white and crying, all the blood drawn out of her face. Doris, my colleague, looked like she was 10 years old, as if the fear of… Read More ›
Six Arms
My first bar in Seattle was Six Arms. Glen was a skinny guy who worked there and drove a silver 280-Z. He was sick with HIV, and they had a jar to collect donations for his treatments, but he died… Read More ›
Buckets of Rain
I got into Bob Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks in high school while riding in the back of Mark’s Mustang, on the way to New Hope, Pennsylvania. The car was fast, and we hugged the twists and turns along the Delaware… Read More ›
Sentiment, sediment, and what’s at the bottom of it
Alright, so I am sentimental about people, places and things. I keep old notes in my coats, a mish-mash of crap in my sock drawer, and I’ve been known to haunt dead-end streets where I necked with a girl. I… Read More ›
On Memoirs, Getting Lost in the Labyrinth
I’ve gone back to A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man for inspiration, this year. As I suffer through the exfoliation phase of writing and the need to purge my life through memoirs, I hope it will lead… Read More ›
Cave
I bought a collection by Rilke at Darvill’s bookstore on Orcas Island, hoping it would free me from a year without writing. The store is small, warm, and jam-packed with books. A chime goes off when the door opens, and… Read More ›
The Disappearing Eyes
Henry and Eve told us about a castle out in the country off Keim Road, and we were convinced there was something bad happening there. Henry interviewed the owner and filmed it: two elderly men lived there, descendants of a… Read More ›
This Mortal Coil
Chris, Dave and I were wedged into a one-bedroom cottage above a Texaco off Division Street in Ocean City, Maryland. The CD function “Repeat” was still a novelty to us in 1992, and we put the record Blood on by… Read More ›
Bill Pearse 