A SAMPLING OF SOME OF MY STUFF
New Year’s Realizations
Published on Dec 17, 2009 in The Morning News
Before tackling our shortcomings in January, we thought it would be good to celebrate the year in personal bests. TMN staff and readers share their proudest moments.
“American author Jessamyn West wrote, ‘Family, friends, and society are the natural enemies of the writer. He must be alone, uninterrupted, and slightly savage if he is to sustain and complete an undertaking.’ What that statement really means is that West didn’t own an alarm clock.”
This Loop of Light and Life
Published on Jul 29, 2009 in The Morning News
The supernatural is all sheets and spooks—Hamlet, Casper, and Field of Dreams—until it’s sitting in your bedroom.
“Hours after I’d gone to bed—this was August of 1989, I was 11—my mother woke me by walking into my room dressed in stupid clothes. Stuff she never wore: a fuchsia and turquoise striped T-shirt with little white-capped sleeves, and turquoise short shorts. She looked like a child. She clutched a handbag in front of her with both hands.”
Drink Your Meds
Published on Jan 6, 2009 in The Morning News
The impulse to weigh decisions with coffee spoons can seem charmingly eccentric on TV. But real-life obsessive compulsive disorder is no fun, what with the imminent death and all.
“If you asked me what I did when I was 16, I would have told you about playing the alto saxophone and taking tap lessons. I probably wouldn’t have described my penchant for tapping the doorframe whenever I walked into a room, or how, every minute, I counted all the numbers on any nearby digital clocks and then assigned their sum a character value from beneficent to malignant. (I’d never tell secrets or reveal anything I was sensitive about during a malignant number’s minute.)”
Meet Classical Music
Published on Apr 16, 2008 in The Morning News
Music that doesn't need an Appreciation class to appreciate
“Usually, when I meet new people and they find out I host classical music on the radio, they ask one to three of the following questions:
1.) Do you talk really low and over-articulate every word?
2.) Do you actually listen to classical music?
3.) Do you think guys meet you and find out what you do and decide you must be boring in bed?
I’ve only been asked that last question once, but someone did actually say those words to me. I didn’t answer. It was rude.”
How to Blow Glass
Published on Sep 21, 2007 in The Morning News
Those who can’t do, learn. As part of our series in which the clueless apprentice with the experts, LAUREN FREY visits a glass-blowing studio in Brooklyn to pursue her lifelong dream of playing with molten material.
“Until last Tuesday, the only molten material I’d ever worked with was chocolate. Even then, “licked off a spatula” is more accurate a description of what I did than “working.” But for the past 16 years, ever since my dad and step-mom took me to an exhibit of glass artist Dale Chihuly’s lilypad-ish flower-like sculptures, I’ve been fascinated by glass blowing. What wouldn’t be fascinating about manipulating a lava-like, potentially disfiguring substance and turning it into beautiful, breakable art?”
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