At the end of the summer, on the last days before school started, I’d go into the classroom with my dad at the school where he taught. There was a periodic table of the elements on one wall, chalkboards and… Read More ›
philosophy
Anthony’s Navel: Chauncy Gardiner on The Fountainhead
This past spring I hosted a guest blog series called Anthony’s Navel, featuring stories about favorite books, films and music by friends and fellow writers. Chauncy just finished his piece (better late than never!), which I’m proud to feature today:… Read More ›
Dead reckoning | Field notes from the Pacific coast
I tried to slow down, to enjoy the last of my time from Mosquito Creek to Oil City. But the tide was at its lowest, which made the rock scramble theoretically easier, with more beach to go around the big… Read More ›
On Tuesdays they come for the recycling
Then the clouds came down so low they flattened the trees and the rain thickened, the drains backed up, the only color from the dead leaves hanging on like rust, the rest of it graphite gray: and the grocery store… Read More ›
Richard Brautigan is dead at 49
It took about a month for them to find his body and a whole lot longer than that for him to be discovered while he was alive. And he is there at the roadside jotting down notes by a flattened… Read More ›
Is your religion a cult?
Anthony made fun of me for having plans Friday afternoon to meet with the Mormons at our house. He said why are you doing it, so you can blog about it? That was part-true. They were supposed to be here… Read More ›
Which is true of anything (for DFW)
It started with the glassy-eyed couple at the lake. They had a dog too. They sounded like they used drugs or lived in Northern California, you could tell by the way they talked. The guy said you can teach a… Read More ›
What little light reflects on the lake
The house had the look of drunks about it, the left behind, random disorder of things not put away, fallen on their sides, not cared for. Light bulbs, plush toys, DVDs all sharing the same shelf by the stereo speaker…. Read More ›
Part-time blogger, full-time ass
I started re-reading Don DeLillo’s White Noise in October, inspired by connections to how our media was handling the Ebola crisis. Ha, ha: look at me! Blogging about Don DeLillo and Ebola! I have a third of the book to… Read More ›
The Golden Hour of Knowing, The Witchcraft of Writing
I repositioned a photo of my dad in a mirror over the fireplace in our den. It’s odd because I look at the mirror and see myself, and also see him in the corner, and I look at both of… Read More ›
Bill Pearse 