WRITER
ESSAYIST/BLOGGER — YEAR ONE (Full collection can be found here)
An unplanned body of work written everyday for 365 consecutive days beginning with an escape from NYC to upstate NY in the initial days of Covid-19.
I wrote these every night on the date listed without exception—never in advance. I would write a rough draft, edit it once, then post it. I would do one more edit either immediately or the next day for blatant grammatical errors. It's the first serial writing I’ve ever done. Since I wasn't offering an entire “book” at once, I made references to past days (i.e., see DAY XX) so the reader could go back and reference that which I referred to. Spelling or grammatical errors were part of the pathos. It my chronicle of Year One of the new age.
Day 299 01.08.2021
Well, it finally happened. And I’m not talking about Twitter taking away someone’s account. Mercury, jealous of Jupiter and Saturn’s conjugal visit last month, has thrust its way into the bedroom in order to engage in a rare celestial three-way with two planets that normally are both out of its league and orbit. I found out about it from an obscure news thread, so immediately I wanted to know what the experts at Allure magazine had to say since they so comprehensibly covered the first sexy solar event (see DAY 280). But when I landed on Allure’s home page, the new planet gossip was nowhere to be found. I was grateful however, to have navigated there because the lead story in the middle of the page was entitled “It’s Not Vain to Care About Losing Your Hair During Cancer.” Thank goodness, for so many reasons. First off, I was relieved to hear that if I ever have cancer, my conscience will be soothed by the knowledge that I’m not being vain if I care about my hair falling out. Secondly, this headline really set me straight. It reminded me of all the times I’ve observed people who have cancer and their hair falls out and they care about it, and I’ve secretly thought to myself how incredibly vain they must be. Note to self: Read Allure more often in 2021. But still, I thought surely there must be some follow-up to Amelia Quint’s cliff-hanging exposé on the original naughty planet twosome somewhere, so I clicked on the search button, and was greeted by a light grey font suggestion fill-in that read: Try “Waterproof Mascara." Try waterproof mascara. I hesitated for a mo. I’m not looking for waterproof mascara, I thought. I was about to type over the words when suddenly I became mesmerized by the suggestion. And even though a little voice in my mind protested “But I’m not looking for waterproof mascara”, I entered just that and clicked the magnifying glass. Did you know that Mandy Moore is using a $62 mascara while she can’t get lash extensions? Oh! and Reddit’s favorite $5 mascara now comes in a waterproof version?? There was something comforting about going down the mascara rabbit hole after having read every single article about the end of our democracy today. I had no idea that it left me longing for stories about mascara. I’ll admit that at one point when I ran out of articles to read (not mascara ones) earlier in the day that made me feel slightly better about this week’s events, I turned to check out some of the opposing Twitter feeds, which was like the equivalent of searching for pictures of car crash victims. But I did realize that all those who profess that part of the problem is that we don’t investigate other points of views and that we all have to learn to work together is absolute malarky. And speaking of Mr. Malarkey-elect, I have to say that today when he invoked the comparison to Goebbels and the Big Lie to the present cast of characters to a national and world audience, I was impressed that someone finally had the guts to call it like it is. Because it’s not enough for a press pundit or seventh in command to make such a statement—it has to come from the guy at the top to make a difference—if it will at all. And if necessary, those tactics of deception, lying and hypnosis have to be explained to every four and ten-year-old in the nation so that they might be armed to recognize it in the future because clearly there is a ginormous segment of grown adults out there who are not familiar with the concept. It’s as sneaky and insidious a thing as using my little fluff piece about planetary threesomes and mascara to lure you into hearing my most remarkable thought of the day.
PRODUCT COPY — Creme de la Cuff
Here's a stunning and important find from the vaults of the exclusive SWANK limited edition Arts of The World Collection: Italian Micro Hand-Set Glass Mosaic Cufflinks. These rare beauties boast a stunning Modernist pattern of two intersecting squares, reminiscent of Romanesque geometrical design. Each tiny tile is hand-set, cradled in their entirety in a classic beaded golden-tone setting.
This is a once in a lifetime collectors item from the mosaic line in perfect condition—a lucky archeological find from an unparalleled era of form and function in mens accessories. They will be accompanied by a Certificate of Pedigree that identifies and dates them from the original magazine ad in which they first appeared—a provenance exclusively yours from Creme de la Cuff!
FICTON — Short Story Intro
BODY PARTS SLAY SHOCKER ran the headline of the Daily News. When police entered the Inwood apartment of Gerry Pollard, they found Rahman Williams frantically trying to hide Mr. Pollard’s head beneath the kitchen sink. Rahman along with a crack-head buddy had killed and dismembered Pollard, and taken over his apartment in the South Bronx. When they showed a local boy the torso, which still lay in the bathtub because they hadn’t known what to do with it, the boy alerted authorities. A squad car arrived just in time to witness an unidentified falling object—later confirmed to be an arm wrapped in tin foil—thrown out the window by the dismemberer’s in a panic when they heard the approaching siren. It was right before police broke through the front door that Rahman and his accomplice started a frantic game of Hot Potato with the head.
He scanned the article for more details of the crime, then rifled through the rest of the pages, nervously glancing around him as if someone might guess his interest in the story. He took the newspaper to the register, avoiding the eyes of the shopkeeper as he paid for it, tucked it under his arm and left the store. When he reached the corner he unfolded it and stared dumbly the front page again. Some instinct forced him to consider holding onto to the paper as an historical memento, like the old papers his parents used to save: “WAR OVER!” or “ELVIS DEAD”. He hesitated for a moment, and then dropped it into the trash. He walked with the urgency of someone in a dream who was late to stop an event that had already occurred. It was lunch hour in midtown. As people raced and dodged around him en route to their midday salvation he took comfort in his anonymity. No one knew he had been the apartment murderer’s mentor. This isn’t the way it supposed to happen, he thought, not quite sure of what “it” meant. Nervously giddy with secret, he walked through walls of heat that radiated from the sidewalk and suddenly felt light-headed. A terrible wail nearby grew louder and louder until finally a caravan of fire engines careened around the corner, then threw a tantrum of sirens and horns in protest to being stopped in traffic. He clasped his hands to his ears as the noise threatened to split him in two, and lunged for shelter in the foyer of a restaurant. The combination of afternoon assaults had already done their damage. The door to things that haunted him that he had so carefully trained to stay shut was forced ajar. As his eyes fell on one booth in particular where a middle-aged woman sat across from a young man, a memory broke its shackles, jumped from its shelf and made a mad dash for recollection. It was the first and last time he met a literary agent.
DRAMA — Excerpt from The Making Of (In 1949 two filmmakers discuss a possible government contract)
TONY
Anyway. This guy calls out of nowhere and says he’s looking for a production company to do a short film…
MAX
I’m all ears.
TONY
I noticed. Anyway, he says it’s for the Department of Education, although this guy didn’t exactly sound like an educator. He wouldn’t exactly say who he worked for, but apparently he saw Our Cities Must Fight and loved it.
MAX
No.
TONY
Went bananas.
MAX
Wow. What a nut job. Is he legit?
TONY
As far as I know. But I kind of turned it down when I found out what the project was.
MAX
Who cares what was? Listen, Tony, we’ll make a feature one of these days. In the meantime, who cares if we have to do a few more shorts? What is it? Sequel to Reefer Madness? The History of Shellfish? Come on…
TONY
It’s a film about the Bomb.
MAX
Jesus! We can’t get away from the fishtunken thing.
TONY
Apparently not.
MAX
What’s the deal this time?
TONY
He was pretty smooth—had his pitch down cold: Russia has the deadly weapon now, we have to be prepared, best defense is a good offense, etcetera, etcetera. Lots of stuff…I couldn’t even follow him after a while he was so full of shit. Slippery.
MAX
So Russia has the bomb, who cares? We stole it from them anyway.
TONY
We stole it from the Germans. With the help of the French.
MAX
Ok, we stole it from the Germans before the Russians could steal it from them. So naturally the Russians get pissed, send over some spies, and steal it from us. Then we get all indignant. They’ll probably end up blaming a couple of Jews. Talk about short memories. Remember when Russia was all the rage a couple years back?
TONY
Yes. I still have my Ukrainian police boots. May I continue?
MAX
By all means.
TONY
So they want to do an educational film. He said it would be shown all over the place, lots of press, lots of exposure, etcetera.
MAX
What kind of educational film? What’s the hell’s left? How to make an atomic soufflé?
TONY
They want kids to be aware of…
MAX
Of the Bomb? What do they want to tell them? That it’s not nice?
TONY
Yeah, it hurts like hell.
MAX
Why do they want to tell kids about the bomb? So they can have nightmares?
TONY
So they can be aware of the threat.
MAX
What threat?
TONY
I don’t know. He didn’t say what threat. The General Threat.
MAX
Of what?
TONY
The threat about being threatened—by someone else—who does something threatening. Like getting hold of a bomb.
MAX
OK, ok. So he wants us to scare people?
TONY
No, just give them information.
MAX
It’s a wonder they’re not terrified already. They even got me all jumpy. Did you hear that air raid siren yesterday?
TONY
Yes, Max.
MAX
You’d think they’d at least come up with some sort of tonal thing, you know, to let us know if it was a really serious siren or just a little warning siren. They all sound the same. Maybe the first warning could be something like a birdcall, or something similar, then the next level could be like a beehive
TONY
And the last one can be a toilet flushing. What’s your problem?
MAX
Nothing. I’d just like to know how scared I’m supposed to get.
TONY
I imagine any level of fear will do.