Sweet Little Soul It’s what Phoebe Snow called Paul Simon, when she sang with him on “Gone At Last,” and I’ve always thought there was something catlike about the graceful, subtle Simon. It’s what my wife Patsy and I called our cat Quetzal, during his brief, ardent life. He was beautiful and shy. He never
Dystalgia Part Two I entered Yale, and I went on acting. In the early 1960s, the undergraduate Yale Dramatic Association and the School of Drama shared the University Theater, although pressure was building in the drama school to kick out the undergrads so that it could mount more plays each season. But that didn’t happen
Dystalgia Part One Whenever Richard Cory went down town, We people on the pavement looked at him: He was a gentleman from sole to crown, Clean favored, and imperially slim. And he was always quietly arrayed, And he was always human when he talked, But still he fluttered pulses when he said, “Good morning,” and
As I sit at my desk writing this rant, a house fly is bumbling around my head. Though they don’t bite, house flies are a plague because they carry filth on their feet, from the rotten food leavings and animal excrement they feed on. And my apartment is infested with them, because my landlord is
The next day passed calmly. Rose arrived in the early morning. She proved to be a stout, cheerful, middle-aged woman with a slight Irish brogue, and when Melda introduced herself, she said, “Well, and isn’t it about time there were a couple of sensible women around the place to take care of Mrs. Beaton and
The Duppy Part Two Mrs. Beaton came into the kitchen. “I thought I heard you, Simon,” she said to her husband, and kissed him on the cheek. “Why are you home so early?” Mr. Beaton frowned. “For God’s sake, Emily, I told you last night that I’m going to the economic symposium in Jackson Hole.
The Duppy Part One “Wanda is a bit of a handful,” Mrs. Beaton warned Melda when she hired her. “We try not to spoil her, but she’s at that difficult age, you understand, just coming into her teens.” Melda did not understand. In Jamaica she’d been the fourth child out of six, and she’d been
Captain Kidd, Part Three He maintained a tissue of legality in his subsequent captures. The first ship he took, after the death of Moore, was Levantine, but she bore French papers, and Kidd carefully saved them, to prove that the prize was legal within the terms of his commission. But on January 10th, 1698, he
Splat Humphty Drumphty wanted a wall. Humphty Drumphty had a great fall. All the right wing-nuts and White-Power men Couldn’t put Humphty together again.
Bert And I is a collection of stories about two crusty Maine farmer-fishermen. It was published in the 1950s by Robert Bryan and Marshall Dodge. I’ve always loved the pair and their tales, and I thought that in these dark times for our country, readers might appreciate a wry laugh or two. It’s interesting to