The elusive North End

   The North End eludes my camera.  The narrow streets.  The authentic corner markets.  The old men who bring their chairs out on the sidewalk to visit and smoke.  It's all so wonderful to see, but hard to photograph.  At least for this amateur.

Here I am

   I was thirty when I decided to try doing some personal writing on a sustained basis.  Why it happened then had something to do with buying our first personal computer and reading John Cheever’s journals, which was the sort of writing (the type, not his quality) that was running through my head.  Coincidentally, I had read not so long before a piece of advice, or maybe warning, from some famous writer that one should not try to write anything until at least the age of thirty.  And there I was. 

   The wisdom of waiting to thirty, I suppose, is that before then you haven’t lived enough, or gathered enough perspective, to make any damn sense.  The problem with waiting to thirty is that you don’t get all the juvenile writing out of your system as an adolescent.   And so I had thirty years of life on this earth, and as a writer I was going on twelve.

   Then I wrote some, but not enough, as kids and work and softball and fishing and travel and all the other stuff of life asserted their own priorities, and now I am here.  Nearly fifty years old, with five electronic volumes of pieces I have written.  Some that seem good to me.  Some not so much. 

   Now my oldest will be off to college in a few months, with her sister just three short years behind.  More time for writing seems close, like a clearing in the woods just up ahead.  But I will miss the deep woods, too.     

    At some point I finally told my wife about the little bit of writing that I was doing.  I told her nothing was finished, of course, and that it was all just for myself.  She said, matter of factly, “I guess I'll have to get this published when you die.”  
    Can you imagine this, some woman saying this incredible thing to you, without even looking up?

(2011)

Boulevardier

      Boulevardier:  1. A frequenter of Parisian boulevards -- more broadly, a man-about-town.  2. A cocktail made with equal parts rye whisky, sweet vermouth and Campari, garnished with a generous slice of orange peel.  

   The first usage I learned from Stephen Presser, a professor at Northwestern Law, circa 1986.  I distinctly remember his delivery:  eyes closed, rising up on the balls of his feet, thrusting his ample torso forward, gesturing grandly.

   The second I learned from a young bartender at Mezze in Williamstown.  A likable guy who talked fast, loved his craft, enjoyed talking to customers -- but not too much -- and was excited to introduce you to a new drink that you "really will like" and actually do.  

   A conversation with the bartender wandered around bourbons for a little while before he suggested the boulevardier, a descendant of the famous Negroni, which is the same drink with gin instead of rye.  Bracing, spicy, bitter, sweet, delicious.  Utterly pleasing.  The second one, too.  

Geishas at home

   The geishas stay in our formal living room.  The room that no one ever visits.  Still, they never fail to look their best.  

Ice in the river, tracks in the snow

   A new year.  A fresh snow.  A cold morning.  A man needs to get out of the house.  To move some air and blood.  To see what the ice looks like in the river, what tracks have been made in the snow.  

Motif Number 7 - the Hotel Del

The cure for anything

   “The cure for anything is salt water -- tears, sweat or the sea.”  

          Isak Dinesen