My father’s father flew free from the depths of the Russian Empire as an infant, for sticks and stones and angry Christians drove his family out. It was in 1916 or maybe 1917.
It was difficult to pay attention to anything but the mass of people that seemed to constantly surround me. Throughout the day, I found fears of terrorist attacks—or disbelief at how a terrorist attack had not yet occurred at the park—infiltrating my mind. I remember being packed into a bus on the way from our hotel to the park, standing with my pale tourist arms and legs rubbing against child limbs and moms’ Bermuda shorts, and thinking how perfect of a target we would be.
Around sixth or seventh grade I remember discussing religion with a friend. We were in the backseat of her car and her mother, who was driving, politely asked me if I attended any type of Christian services.
Big Star are sacred to me – a summer devotional, everything that John Cusack and Emilio Estevez could never be for me, a holy confessor and mentor. I would be surprised if that other late auteur of American adolescence, John … Read More
“Orange-wet fingers and the acid is on her eyes, on her cheeks, running down with the tears and cheap makeup. My father reaches toward her—she is wearing a black silk headband, and he tries to pull it from her hair to wipe her eyes. She yells at him in Greek and he retracts.”
“It’s not the calm before the storm, but the cohabitation of serenity and calamity. It captures the future’s grasp on the present; anxiety is in the very air.”
Earl Sweatshirt looks so young. His baby face bears a sparse mustache I associate with high school boys trying to prove they’ve hit puberty, and he’s swallowed by an oversize Yankees jersey. Maybe it’s just because I’m so close to the stage, and to other people he seems older than his nineteen years.
