Author: Ben East
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Three Guys Diagnose
Backing into my driveway yesterday, I heard the kind of metal on asphalt screech you get when your muffler is falling off. My driveway slopes a bit, so I stopped immediately to prevent driving the tailpipe in on itself like a telescope. Then I nudged forward and the same scraping sound came again. Of course…
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Acts of Papyrus
Why should I think of this ancient on a rainy afternoon, two days after Christmas? The answer involves a breakfast of bananas, milk, and avocado, the wrapping of gifts in discounted paper, the sound of metal scraping against asphalt beneath my car, a podcast featuring Egyptologist Kara Cooney, the aroma of black bean soup filling…
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Where Fact Meets Fiction
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My personal journeys work best as parody. I am a very unserious traveler. I board the train for the potato cutlet, not the arrival in Bangaluru.
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My Barber, My Chiropractor
my barber is an artist with blades and attachments that buzz exquisitely around my head. He uses at least three different scissors snipping with casual abandon to create a snowstorm of clippings before clearing my face in a single stroke. He runs his blades across my eyebrows and whistles out my nose—only the Turkish barber…
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Return of Light
What lifts my spirits during these cold, dark times is this: tomorrow we will have one second more of daylight than we have today.
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Book Review: Pictures of Houses with Water Damage
The 21 stories show in kaleidoscopic form the life, as lives, of an individual confronting the fallout of unrepentant infidelity, unwanted pregnancy, alcohol dependence, failed marriage; We watch lives wrecked by emotional pain, rendered faithfully through the eyes of a cuckold, a cheatwife, a wounded vet boyfriend, a lonely lurking neighbor…
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Eggnog Around the World
The first year I cooked eggnog, the result was a combination of lumps and slime. Not even the high-proof white lightening we poured in–the Malawian jungle juice known as Powers No 1–could cure the stuff. We were Peace Corps Volunteers celebrating Christmas in the back of beyond. We had most of the right ingredients, fresh…
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Surf Report
a low and diminishing will to push out and paddle, there will be no board wax today
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Holiday Travel Writing Tip
Most of us in this parallel economy already have some version of BuyBux—cash rewards for paying with credit. MyBux© takes it to a whole new level, consolidating all loyalty programs under one umbrella. And because I’m a novelist, not a productive entrepreneur, the MyBux© loyalty program exists safely within the confines of my unwritten plot.
Ben East Books 