He was in his early forties, married, with the blackest hair I’d ever seen on a white man, dusted with dandruff he was either trying to get rid of or felt no particular way about. As I stood across Eighth …
Essay
Murky Waters Rising
Prelude: “The Fox and The Hummingbird”
In the backyard of my grandmother’s house, there was a fox that lived in a ditch. Darting across the edge of the forest between the Vermillion River and the house, the cousins competed to …
Shadow Family
We were the fun family. All the kids wanted to play at our house. Working class and artist poor, we always found room for guests. Most weekends, using battered equipment, we hiked, camped, swam, or cross-country skied. We shared library …
Unwomaning
“Pink or Blue? Which is intended for boys and which for girls? This question comes from one of our readers this month, and the discussion may be of interest to others. There has been a great diversity of opinion on …
Grief Teacher
I want to tell my first-year students too many things. Some are relevant to the course they’re signed up for, but most of them aren’t. I went here, too, I tell them on the first day. Grad school too. What …
Never Trust a Man With a Pinky Ring
I.
When I was young, my father was full of aphorisms, some of which made sense.
Such as the time I was seven and got kicked out of school for fist-fighting a redneck named Jaxton. My mother quoted Christ’s Sermon …
daily routine
We don’t know how to move through this house the way we once did. Tía and Mama and Abuela and me, every hour of ours unfolding in a series of fours—four mugs filled up to the lip with café de …
Your Life, After All
During those bookish Midwestern college years of buzz-cut, leather jacket, and youthful butch bravado she enthusiastically relents to the errant interpretation of her gender — as classmates and professors alike assume her masculine appearance is evidence of actual manliness. This …
AN ANNOTATED HISTORY OF “DORIS”
God creates the world. He asks Adam to name the living creatures, since all kine and fowl of the air and beasts of the field should be endowed with their true names. – Genesis
1973
Birmingham, Alabama. Minnan “Charles” Cheng
Mimes
“This might appear pretentious but the only thing which interests us is what is accurate and true” (Lecoq)
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In acting, creating a character is like being a sea anemone.
You’re the chosen substance: anemone. Tendrils. Whatever the tendrils are …
