During the afternoon of my 21st birthday, I was standing by the garden along one side of our house with my father, Walter McCollum. We were looking at the peony buds as they prepared to bloom into great globes of cream and magenta. The sepals were alive with black ants. “Those *%*)(#! ants!” my father […]
Mother *%*)(#! Tongue Read More »
The dying stare beyond you into some other world when you look into their eyes. They gaze intently beyond your care, your grief, beyond your dream. Tonight, you stare up toward where my friend sang his last song, silenced as he was. He’d been gone a day, and where you look now, a bird sang,
The Stare of the Dying (for Richard and Sophie) Read More »
Although “quantitative easing” sounds complex, the idea is relatively simple in economic terms. The central banking system, the Federal Reserve in America, buys bonds from private or commercial banks. As the Wall Street Journal explains, “Bonds are a form of debt. Bonds are loans, or IOUs, but you serve as the bank. You loan your
Quantitative Easing: A Simple Explanation Read More »
Late summer had toasted the grass and weeds, But in the field I found a dandelion ghost, A perfectly spherical puffball of a hundred seeds. I pinched it off and huffed and watched the seeds coast On the random eddies, out, out from my breath Over the exhausted field, like paratroops let from a plane
“Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Four shots ripped into my groin and I was off on the greatest adventure of my life!” – Max Shulman, *Sleep ‘Til Noon* Shulman’s parody of Mickey Spillane’s tougher than tough guy style probably represents what most people thought of “detective stories” when I was young. They were considered one of
Low Tastes I – John D. MacDonald and Travis McGee Read More »
Lana plucked a grilled cheese sandwich out of the pan and noticed she had burned one side. She dropped it onto a plate with the burned side down and carried it over to Mark at the kitchen table. “Here you go, babe.” She studied his receding hairline and thought about the night she first met