Rothko's Rolodex

How many times he tried to leave Rosalie. It was absurd to the max, their marriage in the first place. How it lasted eight years, he did not know. Their therapist, a sprite of a man with a yoga body, said that theirs was a house of mutual revulsion. It was true. They never really Continue reading

I had no idea Jane was around, still extant, her biker boots on the ground of the sphere we call the world, axis tilting and moving around the Sun. The Sun is a funny thing for me to mention for a few reasons, the first being that Jane hated sunshine. We went to Jones Beach Continue reading

I don’t know how it is that such a short time can last for so long. Every time I am here on this block, my brief visitations, every single time I look at decorative molding and ironwork. My attention is not specific to this street. In Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, no bargello of bricks escapes me, Continue reading

There was a Friday in March, not long ago. At long last, I was where I have always wanted to be, and never reached until recently: Eretz Israel, specifically Yerushalayim. We were there with our Chabad community, for nearly two weeks. Each day magnified my desire to be there, at last sated. But at the Continue reading

Back to the rotting Conestoga that is WordPress. I am recovering from a broken ankle, pulmonary embolism, and DVT, and there is no time like the present. I have a cast on my leg, my butt in a hospital bed, and hours on my hands to type in this moribund blog. I have no desire Continue reading

Well, prior to today, I last posted on this thing in 2014. That is eight years, not ten. Eight Years After is not a song. The penultimate post, titled METROPOLITAN LIFE, is one of my favorites. I’m happy to say that Mario Batali no longer slings truffles at Eataly, down the block from the Stanford Continue reading

It’s been a whole decade since I wrote on this thing. The old rock band Ten Years After, whose name I always liked, had a hit called “I’d Love to Change the World.” You’d hear it on PLJ and NEW; very George Harrison guitar, to me at least. At that time I was less than Continue reading

Walking in NY, there’s a pilgrimage spot, a place I need to be. Long gone to me, decades since I popped in after a lit-agent lunch. When I surprised someone in medias res, in the middle of work, in crew-neck sweater fresh from the drafting table. Uninvited, I showed up. I was tacky and unkind. Continue reading

I’m sitting in a parking lot and should be entering a restaurant. Instead I can’t stop writing in my head. About Lou Reed, whose music I adored for so much of my life, for bad times and good, who died today and whose death was expected. I was dreading his death for certain selfish, self-involved Continue reading

Originally posted on Rothko's Rolodex: Lately I’ve been obsessed with the sky photography of experimental geographer and scholar of classified satellites, Trevor Paglen. Paglen documents stealth military installations, a dark world of covert domes and fortified fences he shoots from great distances, often with cameras meant for astronomy. He does gorgeous work and is… Continue reading