ROSALIND: They say you are a melancholy fellow.JAQUES: I am so; I do love it better than laughing.—As You Like It Underneath this flabby exterior is an enormous lack of character.—Oscar Levant, An American in Paris Oscar Levant is a melancholy figure, full of barbed wit, self-loathing, and Rhapsody in Blue, which he performed more …
You can see them, if you look closely, in all the old photographs: my fingers flush at the knuckles and nails, squeezed tight as window blinds so no light can slip between. It’s Christmastime in this one. We’re standing in front of the flocked plastic tree. The parcels beneath it, shiny gold with silver bows, …
Be easy. No—Be smooth enough that you don’t have to be as hard as a four-year-old saying “hydrangeas” is what he’d say. He said it as slick as an ice cube sliding on itself or as a puck coasting toward goal. Maybe that’s what made him a Boston weed man, or maybe being a weed …
over dumplings & rice, Nancy says you’re welcomeas she considers her ancestors & the goldsthey left, a mug of oolong clenched in her hands, tightclaws. for the plants & their leaves you steep, the anti-oxidants, the paper, the bark, the silk of the insects.you’re welcome for the gunpowder, for the colorunfurling across the cloudless dark. …
Better takeout was thriving in DeKalb County,but the school system hadn’t caught up,its languages unable to support the Greek bakery,dim-sum parlors, or lox-and-bagel shops.We knew the Roman Empire went beyond Italyand Pizza Hut was not quite Italian,but we had to distinguish Latin partiesfrom the French, Spanish, and German.Latin drew the kids who would opt for …
