Fall 2003. High on one wall of Markey’s Bar, on the corner of Louisa and Royal, behind beer signs and framed pictures of ballplayers, is a mural of the old Banana Walk. Against a gold, nicotine-softened sky, …
The first concert I ever went to was ELO. They were on their A New World Record tour. I played the songs so much they got stuck in my brain, like snakes swimming around. The show was at the Omni …
At the end of October when I call my dad in Ohio he sounds like a trucker. His voice a box of rocks. I am on my way to campus to teach a weekly class. I don’t like to …
Illustration by Dale Thompson
I. Kenwood, Minneapolis
As on the last several Saturday afternoons, Brian Ward, a 56-year-old illustrator of considerable local renown, was counseling his friend on how to preserve his marriage. The effort, as always, was hopeless. Ward’s friend, the hedge fund …
In anguish also they wail the fatal snare….
O ye that are two souls within one fire
—Dante, Inferno, Canto XXVI
The wild deer, wand’ring here & there,
Keeps the Human Soul from Care.
—William Blake, Auguries of Innocence
A …