“In such a world of conflict, a world of victims and executioners, it is the job of thinking people, not to be on the side of the executioners.”- Camus
You Can Listen Here In first grade we turned right and walked down the hallway past the troll’s room, Mrs. Coll’s room, who spanked children on their birthdays because it amused her, past the gigantic, almost naked, bleeding sculpture of Christ on the Cross, his eyes looking down on us from an unearthly height, past the little store where we could buy penny candy if we had been deemed especially good, past the heavy […]
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You Can Listen Here I hear the thump. I know what it is. Instantly awake, I fly out of bed. His legs have given way, and now he lies on his side, back arched into a curve, his four feet drawing together as if all of them could fit into one small space on the carpet. His eyes are open wide, unblinking, his gums pulled back so that upper and lower teeth are bared […]
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You Can Listen Here Do men become comic figures as they grow older? My wife arranges the collar of my shirt so that I will not “look schlumpy”. She tugs at it to separate it from the new coat I have pulled on, a Christmas present. She tells me to walk outside to see if it is warm enough. On the walkway in the hard winter light, I catch a glimpse of myself in […]
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You Can Listen Here We read novels to learn how to do something – sight a 16-pound cannon in preparation for a broadside exploding out of the gun deck of a 19th century British Man-of War*; prepare a runway in a field for the desperate takeoff of a small plane**; learn how to recognize agents of the secret police in late 20th century Libya*^; understand the processes by which a new drug emerges from […]
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