Defuncted

A congregant asked me how I most want to be remembered, as a rabbi or a physicist. “Remembered,” I said, “Why, am I going someplace?” …

I could feel the terror in my flesh in the darkness before I opened my eyes. A tightening, here and there, all over my body. …

With the Compton youth baseball and softball programs … once more short of funds, Mike Lerner’s mind went into overdrive …

Caroline and Peter were the type of people who wanted their house to smell good. Scented candles were out. Aromatherapy was out. …

I was famished when I got home. So I wasn’t pleased to find a man in my bedsit. ‘Mr Godber? Your landlady kindly let me in. …

The inside of the church on Manhattan’s Lower East Side was damp and smelled like scented candles and old leather. David stood in the back

It’s the bagpipes — droning, keening, high-pitched. The sound should be annoying, and yet everything in me wants to cry along. …

It was a quiet morning in the Year of the Rooster. The old fortune teller Hiromi Shoju sat still in the doorway of his house. …

The first baseball game I ever attended was in old Connie Mack Stadium at 35th and Lehigh. My father had taken me and three others …

Cy-ku. Or cyaiku. Whatever handle you slap on it, it’s hot, it’s new and it’s sweeping the Web. …

“1842: US Army Expedition —   58 Days, 85 Soldiers, One Native Guide, One Woman,” “Angina,” and “Indian Summer”

There’s a budding young writer camping out on my couch — broken, and broke — who lives under the popular (mis)impression that all writers…

“Second Time Around” and “Drumming for the Pole”

A few years ago, I discovered the Metropolitan Opera’s Live in HD and the Royal Opera House’s Live Cinema Season programs…

I am not a superstitious person by nature. Nor am I religious. But I do believe that in our everyday lives, occasional, mundane events…

The Void, Virtually, and The Picture

“vagrant’s sun,” “a man on a corner with a cup in his hand,” and “a woman in church in a tight linen dress”

“Workshop Words”, “I Am Not Writing about Daffodils. I Am Trying to Make Them Bloom Again” and “Searching for My Dutch Ancestor”

Yes, I remember that railroad flat we shared on the third floor, the one with the chandeliers and dumbwaiter closet and wall heater…

James and Yvonne have a son, almost as old as their relationship. … Bobby sits now in the back seat … ensconced in his phone.

…someone had written a name… [had] written it there, on the corner brick. “Trey Matthews,” a boy of 13 who had been shot in the…

Most of the jobs on Craigslist were looking for girls willing to sell their bodies. “Exotic bottle service girls, girls needed…

The other day in conversation with my old pal JP something triggered a memory of the truly bizarre and occasionally frightening rash…

It’s sad You told something yesterday I just thought we could talk over the phone for a little while But you are done …