I live at the confluence of a busy two lane highway and a dead-end country road in a house that was once an early 18th-century tavern and stagecoach stop on the way from Philadelphia to Cape May. The busy road is a major artery on the bay side of our peninsula, and is the backcountry alternative to the Garden State Parkway.
I’m Not Writing Less, I’m Trying To Publish More
A modest explanation for why it might seem as though I am writing less even though I am doing more At the height of my writing productivity, some years ago, I was publishing one to two essays a day on the blogging platform Medium. I was churning out work at…
Daily Drinking And The Power Of Peripheral Thinking
I get bored with reality and I miss having a reliable mind-altering experience to look forward to at the end of the day. There’s only so many times you can dip into the coffee pot for your daily dose of a little thrill and there’s nothing waiting for you at the end. No little treat. How do you know when your workday is done if you don’t change your mindset with a little altered reality? That’s the real habit that’s difficult to break. This is why recovering addicts turn to sweets and nicotine. The lesser of evils, or so they imagine.
Separating My Politics From My Art
Back when I published a few digital magazines on Medium, it didn’t take long to learn that political writing didn’t fit all that well with my vision for what the magazines should be. Politics was an important topic to me, as it should be to everyone, but it was often so toxic and volatile that it contaminated the rest of the work. Ultimately, I created a separate publication just for my political writing, and opened it up to others. For a time, it was an effective outlet, then the country elected an orange buffoon and I put my head under the covers and stopped reading any news, or commenting on it.
The Upside Of Pain
So much of the way we experience life comes down to our perspective, and how we choose to feel about the world around us. I truly do believe it’s a choice, because our joy is rarely defined by our experiences, but rather by our reaction to them.
A Star Is Bored
A slightly cranky view of the night sky and our endless cultural fascination with temporary astral phenomenon.
Day Drinking
Sheryl Crow once opined that she liked a good beer buzz early in the morning, and I have to agree with her there. You have to be careful, of course, and neither overdo it, or become accustomed to it. No one likes a drunk. But if you can limit your excesses to the occasional excursion into daylight inebriation, it can be quite enjoyable.
Peter and the House of Hové
Part of a series of essays on New Orleans. Peter is a character. This does not make him special, or even cause him to stand out in a city such as New Orleans, which is filled to the brim with characters. It is, in fact, a city of characters, as…
A Thin Veil
If you told me that New Orleans did not actually exist, but was merely a figment of my imagination, an unlikely fever dream as illogical as it was fantastical, I just might believe you. There’s something not quite reliable about my own accounts from my visits to that shadowy swamp of food and festivities, let alone the accounts of others.
There Is A Crack In Everything
I have spent a lifetime trying to corral young artists and budding writers through process of creating something from nothing and my most important lesson has always been that perfection is a myth, and that seeking it, is a complete waste of spirit. This is not to say we should avoid striving for excellence, as excellence is different than perfection. Excellence is the best you can do with the tools you’ve been given, while perfection is nothing more than the unattainable folly of the delusional and compulsive.