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SHARING
It wasn’t exactly what you wanted, butyou probably wouldn’t have been all that upset.It was all about you, but not for you, thatcomes later, and we know you’ll be pleased.This one was for some of us who needed thisto be able to keep going, to keep from lookingonly back, into the darkness that is our…
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ANYWHERE BUT
I was twelve at the time, would havechosen to be anywhere but there.I hated visiting her at home, but thistook my disgust to a whole new level.We were never close, never would be,she so old, so old world, so unlikeanyone I had known, so like the womensitting outside the old hotels on South Beachwaiting for…
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WORDS, WORDS, WORDS
We are, he is convinced,devolving into verbal neanderthals,losing are ability to recognizethe linguistic tools that onceset us apart from other species,or at least so we assured ourselves.She knows that what truly sets usapart from other species is the arcaneskill we have at being ableto convince ourselves thatdelusion, firmly held, is fact.Still, she cannot disagree with…
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ROCK AND HARD PLACE
The hardest age by faris the one where you are stuckin the middle, children below,parents above, and utterly nohope of escape from the vise.Things your mother could do effortlesslynow seem impossible for her, and thosethings now need doing immediately.Your children, ever wise at creatingnovel approaches to anything they wantin life regardless of your opinion,suddenly cannot…
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NAME IT
Aunt Tzipporah hated her name,detested it really, came closer to the truth.“What the hell were my parents thinking?”she said, “like being Jewish in West Virginiaisn’t going to be hard enough.On a good day I got away with being Zippy,but you try spending your Junior year in high schoolhearing “Hey Zipper” or having some jerkcome up…
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THE CLUB
It’s jazz, it’s a club,but there what once wasis no more, there areno ashtrays on the table,overflowing early intothe second set, no cloudof cigarette smoke descendingfrom the too dark ceiling.There is no recognizable odorof a freshly lit Gaulloise,in the trembling fingers ofa young man trying to look cool,trying not to cough on eachinhalation, in the…
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THE VILLAGE
I’d like you to tell meabout the village in whichyou grew up, and how oddit must have been for youto have met my grandfatherso far from any villagein the heart of Lithuania.I suspect you leftwith your parents, exhaustedby pogroms, exhaustedby the Jewishnessthat to them defined you.I’d love to knowabout my mother whoI never got to…
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PELICAN
The pelican hasn’t been aroundfor a couple of days, and we misshis akimbo dives into the pond,surfacing and throwing his head backto show he’s swallowing his catcheven though we suspect some of the timehe caught nothing at all, but knowingwe’re as gullible an audienceas he is likely to find any time soon.We hope he is…
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FLIP IT
It would be an anathema to himif he were a Pope or held deeply feltopinions about anything, but he does not.He denies being vacillating, rather, he says,he is just open to a multitude of views,never mind, she replies, that hecan never make any important decisionexcept by mere chance or luck.He says he prefers life this…
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TUESDAY TRUTH: MISS MUFFET
She is anything but little, huge wouldn’t be a gross overstatement. And I suppose you could call a overstuffed brocade cushion a tuffet if you stumbled here out of the Nineteenth century. And just for the record, she was munching on a well-aged brie and sucking down a Courvoisier-laced Greek yogurt smoothie. Oh, yes, did…
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an old writer and his words 