SAN ANTONIO, TX
What photos have on words is speed.
Photos can be evocative, epiphanic and emblematic instantly, faster than the printed word.
They suck us in at the speed of sight. The speed of emotion.
SAN ANTONIO, TX-
“It all began with a fuck,” goes the brash opening line of D.R. Haney’s first novel Banned for Life, and the strange seduction begins.
For those who haven’t read Haney’s sprawling debut, it follows Jason Maddox’s serio-comic adventures in the underground punk scene, stretching beyond mosh pit mayhem and barroom brawls to explore death and obsession and purpose. The author zigzags confidently between a resonant coming-of-age tale in North Carolina, la vie boheme in hardscrabble New York, and a tempestuous L.A. love affair which leads our narrator to Belgrade for climax and denouement.
SAN ANTONIO, TX-
As a transplant, I feel about Texas the way I imagine a lot of men feel about strip clubs: self-consciously fond.
Obesity is rampant, retail centers are unnecessarily gargantuan, McMansions do ostentate behind gated communities - all the dubious braggery of “everything’s bigger” does ring true.
But this unimaginative, irritating slogan also happens to capture the one redeemable big state feature: its endless horizons.
SAN ANTONIO, TX-
My parents’ big beige White Westinghouse stocked with foodstuffs
New and old, foreign and domestic, healthy and hedonic
From the adjustable top rack to the stay-crisp drawers and even the interior door shelving
SAN ANTONIO, TX-
702 W. Martin, the cute puffy red cartoon star on my Mapquest map, turns out to be a creepy, rundown cinderblock high rise. The grass is worn away in big patches and the windows are lined with garbage bags, aluminum foil or blankets. It smells like a hundred people have been cooking potent ethnic food in concert with their doors open. Mariachi music plays at hearing damage volume from a ground level unit.
But the view is breathtaking.
SAN ANTONIO, TX-
A megastar movie based on a New York Times best-selling book based on a Sex & The City episode drops February 6th. Fashioning an acerbic advice book into a screenplay is a feat only writers like Charlie Kaufman can safely ignore.
He’s Just Not That Into You was published in 2004 and struck a significant chord. It seems only fair if not mildly treasonous to return the favor to men.
SAN ANTONIO, TX-
Can you pay my bills
Can you pay my telephone bills
Can you pay my automo’bills
I don’t think you do
So you and me are through
(Bills, Bills, Bills, 1999)
In the traditional machine-child model of hetero relationships, a woman remains childlike in her dependence on a man to provide for her financially.
The typical female response to male financial failure, under the old model, would be repression of anger, crying, withdrawing and withholding of physical affection.
Beyonce does not smother her emotions. She expresses them forthright. And ends the relationship.
SAN ANTONIO, TX -
Where is the line between open exploration and oversharing? asks a commenter in response to Emily Gould’s NYT article “Exposed”.
It’s one of the most relevant, interesting, complicated and exhausting enquiries in literary criticism today.
Discussing narcissism is a tricky business.
It gets especially delicate when it’s a woman who’s the narcissist.
SAN ANTONIO, TX-
Three painful times per week I give Mrs. Kim private conversation lessons.
Our classes are fraught with abnormally long silences as Mrs. Kim chooses and assembles English phrases in her head, silences which are considerably more frequent and much longer than in normal conversation and even by typical ESL class standards excessive and unacceptable.
SAN ANTONIO, TX-
Fundamentals of Investing meets Tuesday nights in Room J113 at Sandra Day O’Connor High School on the east side.
Sandwiched between J111 (the scantly attended Build Your Own Drip Irrigation System) and J115 (the chockablock Flipping Properties Made Easy (despite the national housing downturn, Texas will post price gains in ‘08)), Room J113 is painted penitentiary gray except for the door and door frame, both of which are a shade I’ve heard my mother refer to as burnt sienna. Across the hall in J112 is a class tantalizingly titled Unintended Consequences.
SAN ANTONIO, TX-
Last week one of my English students accidentally drove her Lexus sedan into classroom 6.
A nasty construction crunch drew a teacher’s curiosity. When he saw what had happened he shouted, “Someone drove into the building!” from across the hall, at which point everyone on our side took off running.
“Who’s going to call 911?” I asked the running people as they sped by but everyone ignored me so I nominated myself.
911 put me on hold (which should be illegal) probably for a minute but it felt like several lifespans in solitary confinement. Finally a live human came on and inquired languidly whether the call should be directed to fire, EMS or the police.
SAN ANTONIO, TX-
What’s the most unconventional way you’ve met a romantic partner? See how this compares.
2 a.m., local public channel.
SUBTEXT - THE DATING SHOW
The hostess, a clear-skinned brunette of +/- 24, whose wardrobe is ostensibly provided by the Urban Outfitters sale rack, appears to have eschewed formal on-camera training. It may be that she was one of few adventurous souls who responded to what was undoubtedly a Craigslist ad in search of local on-air personalities for a unique new “cross-media dating show” but in any case it will turn out that neither training nor talent are integral to the show’s popularity.
SAN ANTONIO, TX-
1930 lynching of Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith in Marion, Indiana
Louis Eugene Walcott was born on May 11, 1933, in the Depression-era Bronx.
Around the same time, a preacher in Detroit named Wallace Fard Muhammad disappeared.
This is significant.
A white man by some accounts and Arab by others, Wallace Fard Muhammad was a salesman. Peddling raincoats door-to-door afforded him just the right opportunity to evangelize.
SAN ANTONIO, TX-
It’s 2008, and you’re a 27-year-old white American girl. You have a mid level professional job. You rent an apartment with amenities including but not limited to a pool, workout room and business center. You have your own credit history, your own car payment, your own vibrator.
You are more affluent and liberated than any woman in history.
Read Kay Hymowitz’s unflattering portrait of the twentysomething male here.
While it may be true that your male counterpart often fritters away his free time with basketball, gadgets and clubbing, replace ‘basketball’ with ’shopping’ and both sexes are mirror images of each other.
SAN ANTONIO, TX-
Spelling in songs is a lyrical device used to rally crowds. The gimmick has enjoyed some great moments.
A brief retrospective:
B-I-N-G-O and Bingo was his name-o
SAN ANTONIO, TX-
On October 29, 2007, a fisherman discovered the body of a two year old blond girl inside a blue
Sterilite utility box on a sandbar in the Galveston Intercoastal Waterway.
Imagine you’re a fisherman, going about the hard labor of your day and you find a dead toddler.
The Galveston County Sheriff’s Office determined the unidentified child had been dead for several weeks and for purposes of the investigation referred to her as Baby Grace.
SAN ANTONIO, TX-
He climbs my stairs like Tigger, full of bounce and light.
I’m waiting in the kitchen drinking wine, the ceramic tile smooth and cool under my bare feet, the anticipation of him hot and prickly.
He grabs me roughly and we kiss until our lips throb. He gets a hard on, steps back for assessment purposes.
Nice, I say sincerely.
Like that? he asks.
Of course, I reply. It’s so difficult to find a guy with a big cock and a big vocabulary.
He spits out a laugh. Is that right?
SAN ANTONIO, TX-
This is my record of quitting smoking with the cessation drug Chantix.
Note 1: Always consult your doctor about drug dosages.
Note 2: This is not the diary of a pack-a-day puffer. I cannot attest to the stuff’s efficacy with hardcore smokers.
But I can attest to a hardcore and irrational love for smoking.
Especially with wine.
Or vodka tonics.
SAN ANTONIO, TX-
I’m keeping your shampoo and conditioner in case you ever come back to Texas, wind up staying in my bed and showering in my shower the next morning.
