When the abyss stared back at me, I saw an unutterable sadness, a black heart stone which had replaced Pandora’s hope after the doubts and terrors had fled. The loathing and nightmares were protections, I realized, from the inexorable illness at the core of the universe, at the center of our each universe. And I …
Author Archives: steve
Who Owns The Rights To "Pants On The Ground"?
[UPDATE (Jan 21, 2010): Apparently Larry Platt is asking some of the same questions raised below, and is looking for a lawyer to help him protect his rights to “Pants On The Ground”] Well, anyone who has ever doubted Simon Cowell’s music business acumen will certainly have to give him credit now. Perhaps at the …
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A Desperate Tale
The Fall of Paris: The Siege and the Commune 1870-71by Alistair Horne Alistair Horne’s study of the Siege of Paris and the Paris Commune which followed is a remarkable history “from the inside”, as it were: “inside” in this case being within Paris, first during the Prussian investment and then amidst the follies and fury …
Customer Service
I would like to say right off that I have been called abstruse and obtuse, verbose and vague, erudite and recondite, eccentric and elliptical, prolix and elliptical, meandering and tangential, indirect and evasive, and just plain weird. I cannot in all honesty say these things, because I can recall only perhaps 75% of them being …
Woman On The Verge
She did not look at me — she looked at no one, she apologized to the man sitting between us in the back row of our flight to San Diego. She knew she seemed rude, but she couldn’t look at people when talking to them. She was deeply troubled. There are times in a human’s …
My Autobiography
Many have asked me to say some few words about my history over the past decade or two, and so I have decided to accede to their request with a short autobiography. I did fear, I must admit, that some — erm — slightly sordid events might lower my esteem in their eyes. On the …
The Gift
Everyone received a gift. On the wayHome from the hospital, you left yoursOn the bus. Or handed it to a stranger,While you buttoned your coat.When you looked up, it was gone.Or perhaps they watched after it for you.“We’ll give it to you when you’re ready.”But though you waited, are still waiting,You’ve received nothing. PerhapsThe absence …
Man never Is, but always To be blest
Oh, happy day! Callooh! Callay! I truly believe Pope’s words above, as epitomized by the 1980’s button — ah, buttons were all the rage — advising “Jesus is Coming! Look Busy!” And just as we await eternally the life to come where all will be made right, so there are certain events which I look …
Lethargy
Asking for help is losingThe game we played in past lives is presentFor a moment, although heartacheArgues otherwise Unprincipled babes devour the mother, the carcassReeks of boredom. Night severs the tiesOf day repeating the phrases givenBy angels. My flesh, so weak, denatured and driedLike buffalo skin in a matchbook,Files away the long silence and hopes …
Nothing Bad to Say about Benedict Arnold
A Narrative of Colonel Ethan Allen’s Captivityby Ethan Allen A seminal work in U.S. patriotism, Ethan Allen’s Narrative rings with vibrant ardor for Liberty and the nascent United States. He despises England — as a country — as much as he loves the cause of American freedom. Though not without its faults, Allen’s tale sheds …