Category: Blogs
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When Publishing Was Hard
I tailor-made an essay for an in-house blog last month. Labored over 500 words and thought it a shoe-in. But they passed. The rejection would’ve stung if I thought the piece was lousy. This was for a blog, but the rejection didn’t hurt: I don’t submit rubbish, though I may write it. I knew the piece…
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Angels Walk Here
This blog opened four years ago with the following: I wish more people were reading books. Here’s what I’m reading: Heaven Is Coming Home, by David Suarez Gomez. That’s all I wrote. And I didn’t post again for months. I had a voracious appetite for reading and I was writing books, but they were years from…
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Mother Land: A Review for Mothers Day
Stephen King reviews Paul Theroux’s new novel, Mother Land at the New York Times this week (PeaceCorpsWorldwide brought it to my attention). King gives voice to the love-hate relationship so many readers have with the Returned Peace Corps Volunteer, novelist and travel writer, whose prolific career spans nearly six decades and whose vicious pen reaches the furthest places on the…
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World Book Day
On Earth Day I pollute. On World Book Day I watch movies. If I list my favorites, it becomes clear that most actually started out as novels—even Cool Hand Luke (Donn Pearce, ’65) and Midnight Cowboy (James Leo Herlihy, same year). Easy Rider (’69) is the exception.
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Miles of Fun, Miles of Files
Paul Panepinto is bored at work. How could he not be? He’s a painter trapped by lapsed policies, cold chocolate in a Federal Funding mug, and long stints of muzak while on hold with Mortgage Depot. Also there are his smarmy daydreams of ‘better times’ with Suzanne Biedertyme to get him through the monotony. Panepinto…
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Swimming with Sharks
My first shark dive, over a decade ago, our group encountered half a dozen reef sharks in the Red Sea. The big monsters circled the coral an hour offshore. The sight stole my breath, my aqualung pumping furiously—not the best reaction at minus 30 ft. The white tip is a predator, though not likely to charge across open water for…
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Poisonwood
A nightmare tree grows in the hammock jungle along Route One of Fat Deer Key. Poisonwood. Its touch will boil the skin; its toxin, when burned, will sear the lungs; its berries, if ingested, will sour the gut. At mile 56 the Poisonwood grows alongside its antidote, the Gumbo Limbo. Folk medicine has it the remedy should be…
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33 Inches for Kerouac
At CVS today I bought one item. One. Doesn’t matter what. When the purchase was finalized, the cashier handed me the receipt. Guess how long that sucker was. Some of this is necessary, perhaps. Now I know I was served by a person named Reina. Hi Reina. Phone number, store address, price paid plus taxes (the…
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Foreign Service Blogs (II)
Discovering more blogs kept by Foreign Service Officers, old and new, from DC to Bucharest, from cat-lovers to chess masters. Cross Words Among the most interesting aspects of this blog is the lack of a lapel pin declaring the author a Foreign Service Officer. Instead we see a chess enthusiast and writer of fantasy and science fiction. Currently…
Ben East Books 