Clik here to view.
What the World Can Do
In the summer of 1973, my younger brother and I shared a basement apartment on East 12th Street in Brooklyn off Avenue J, a nice middle-class sort of area. We had lost our parents to cancer and a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
In a galaxy far far away: The East Village Years
Some prescribe the medicine of looking forward not back; don’t dwell on the past they advise, move along. Usually a proponent of such sentiment, I found it diminished when my attention was redrawn to...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A Simple Procedure
I am 21 and in the heat of my first New York summer, when I decide to have a four-centimeter rod inserted into the meat of my inner bicep. About the size of a matchstick and made of a material I can’t...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Sultry Scent of Formaldehyde
My memories of high school are burdened by two deciding factors: the absence of girls and my aversion to math and science, both regrettable, given the fact that the prestigious institution I attended,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
On Etan Patz and Walking to School
NCSC Etan Patz disappeared forty years ago, on May 25, 1979. I was seven then, in second grade, and right around that time, perhaps even that same month, is when I started walking home from school on...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Rootless
Sattley, California. Winter solstice 2016. We’re at my Aunt-in-law’s house, in the High Sierras, in the Egyptian room. Sphinxes, golden fabrics, a Nefertiti head. The rest of the house is faux...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Patches
I’ve been accused of many things, but never of false modesty. You’d have to be pretty old to remember the catchy TV ads that the long departed Braniff Airways used to run. They hired celebrities like...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Dealers I Have Known
I began using cannabis regularly in 1968, when I was about 14 years old, and since then have had innumerable encounters with dealers. The ones I will write about here are the dealers with whom I had...
View ArticleClik here to view.
In Praise of Rooftops
I’m sitting on the roof of a walk-up on East 11th Street, staring into the large glass windows of a penthouse apartment across the street. It’s an early evening in August, the perfect time of night...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Man in Apartment 6
Apartment 6 is on the third floor, so I guess that’s why I don’t notice the odor. But I have been wondering why suddenly my super has put lavender scented Air Wick stick-ups all over the hallway...
View Article
