A WRITER'S WIT
Each wrong act brings with it its own anesthetic, dulling the conscience and blinding it against further light, and sometimes for years.
Rose Macaulay
Born August 1, 1881

Youthful Hazards

August 4, 2014, Paul Theroux, “Action”: Albert, the fifteen-year-old son of a Boston shoe store owner, runs an errand for his father in the late 1950s and faces some unforeseen hazards. ¶ Danger seems to lurk everywhere, whether it’s a man that steals his dime pastry or a store owner who asks Albert if he want to get “bollocky” and have his picture taken. Albert’s friend Eddie has told him about his girl, Paige, who is twenty, stating that she’s “action.” After attending to his father’s errand of picking up some shoes, Albert stops to visit Paige at her flat. She is ironing and offers him some lemonade. Having survived the previous perils, Albert

Edel Rodriguez

A WRITER'S WIT
Experience is not what happens to you; it's what you do with what happens to you.
Aldous Huxley
Born July 26, 1894

The Most Difficult Meal

July 28, 2014, Saïd Sayrafiezadeh, “Last Meal at Whole Foods”: A twenty-eight-year-old male narrator whose mother has three months to live recalls his life as a child with his single parent. ¶ I kept thinking as I read this story: I’ve been here (caring for elderly parent), and I find it uncomfortable. Yet Sayrafiezadeh takes us to a familiar place that also belongs just to his narrator and mother: the professor who impregnates his mother but who’s too busy to marry her or provide for his son; their life of living on Goodwill and Whole Foods; his mother’s fixation on seeing that he receives a proper education—even to the point of playing Scrabble missing an “f”. She is squeamish about his manners:

Lettering: Marion Deuchars/Photo: James Ross

“When I was a child, she would screech and recoil anytime my finger approached the vicinity of my nose” (66).

A WRITER'S WIT
The form of my poem rises out of a past that so overwhelms the present with its worth and vision that I'm at a loss to explain my delusion that there exist any real links between that past and a future worthy of it.
Hart Crane
Born July 21, 1899

My Book World

A WRITER'S WIT
One night some short weeks ago, for the first time in her not always happy life, Marilyn Monroe's soul sat down alone to a quiet supper from which it did not rise.
Clifford Odets
Born July 18, 1906

Maybe Drugs Are the Answer

July 21, 2014, Greg Jackson, “Wagner in the Desert”: Two couples visit the desert area of Palm Springs and do non-stop drugs before beginning their search for Wagner, a man who may or may not finance a film one of the men wants to make. ¶ This story is truly one of, for, and about people under thirty-five. The author’s extremely articulate and lyrical prose walks (or rolls) us in a trance-like way through their lives. He names every drug, every substance (including some scrumptious food) they consume on a New Year’s weekend several

“First we did molly, lay on the thick carpet touching it, ourselves, one another. We did edibles, bathed dumbly in the sun, took naps on suède couches. Later, we did blow off the keys to ecologically responsible cars. We powdered glass tables and bathroom fixtures. We ate mushrooms—ate and waited, ate and waited . . . we smoked cigarettes and joints, sucked on lozenges lacquered in hash oil. We tried one another’s benzos and antivirals, Restoril, Avodart, YAZ, and Dexedrine, looking for contraindications.”

A WRITER'S WIT
When I sit down to write, I don't think about writing about an idea or a given message. I just try to write a story which is hard enough.
Jhumpa Lahiri
Born July 11, 1967

My Book World

Ahead of her Time or Too Late?

Out of the Past, They Determine the Future

Schulman, Daniel. Sons of Wichita: How the Koch Brothers Became America’s Most Powerful and Private Dynasty. New York: Grand Central, 2014. Whenever I meet others who are also from Wichita, I’m often asked where I went to high school. It is a subtle way of determining very quickly to which social class I must belong. Indeed, I grew up on the other side of several sets of tracks, certainly far from the East Thirteenth Street address, where the Koch brothers spent their early years. In fact, beyond a certain point the Koch brothers didn’t even attend Wichita public schools, but exclusive preparatory or military schools in other parts of the country. And only one of the brothers, Charles, continues to live in Wichita today. The rest of them live (given they own multiple residences) in a variety of places, including the Northeast.

A WRITER'S WIT
When we have understood, we hear in retrospect.
Marcel Proust
Born July 10, 1871

Photos

A WRITER'S WIT
A well-informed mind . . . is the best security against the contagion of folly and of vice.
Ann Radcliffe
Born July 9, 1764

Weatherall Meets Columbus?

A WRITER'S WIT
Love has as few problems as a motor car. The only problems are the driver, the passengers, and the road.
Franz Kafka
Born July 3, 1883

Ah, What a Little Rain Can Do!