“Jerome Bernard Parent, what are you doing?” my mother asked. Uh oh. Full name. I’m in trouble. “I’m just reading,” I said, showing her the book. “That’s rude for a guest to be doing. Now go outside with the other kids and play.” “All right,” I said. “In a minute.” I peeked down the stairs. All of the grownups, including my mother, were drinking and talking loudly about the upcoming
In my article “The Covert Aggressor: A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing,” I discuss how manipulators in a relationship can set up their partners for failure, then feel like they “win” when their partner feels bad. I’d like to visit another type of manipulator, the Parental Alienator. Meet Bob and Penny. Penny, never having had much male attention before, is thrilled that handsome, mysterious Bob wants her. Bob is happy to have
It’s easy enough to argue that revenge in its most ethical manifestation serves as a necessary form of retributive justice. Sometimes, threats and the damage done by others must be punished or eradicated through moral and physical correctives. In this regard, revenge stands as an essential survival skill for individuals and groups alike. At a subtler level, successfully prosecuted acts of revenge usually require intricate behavioral patterns that help us
I see only forms that are lit up and forms that are not. There is only light and shadow. Francisco Goya From a conversation, quoted by L. Matheron, Goya, Paris, 1858
Recently, I visited a local haunted house, and it was absolutely fantastic. I screamed my lungs out and experienced a great range of emotion, witnessed some spectacular costumes, and got to watch others express themselves freely in a way only available in such houses of fear, awe, and weirdness. I highly recommend haunted houses for every one of the ten reasons I’ve detailed below. 1. Setting the mood. Haunted houses
In “Why I Continue To Write: Thirty-five years after Last Exit to Brooklyn,” Hubert Selby Jr. says of his youth, I went into the hospital in 1946, with advanced tuberculosis, and altogether I spent three and a half years in the hospital. By the time I got out I had had 10 ribs removed, one lung collapsed, a piece of the other one removed, and there were some severe complications
