Entwined contemplations of author Chris Hedges (War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning) and former ad-man Bruce Bauman, and their respective relationships to this essay’s author (a ne’er-do-well novelist and ex-soldier)…
Essays
When Dolls Talk
I was eighteen years old when my daughter, Belinda, was born—a kid having a kid. I didn’t see myself as a kid, of course. That understanding came later.
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Relations
Hard Canvas
We’re pouring concrete into holes created by IEDs—roadside bombs. The ground in Iraq is extremely hard. A landscaper’s nightmare, it’s not made for digging and planting. Most of the IEDs are set on the top of the ground.
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Death Rattle
This clothing, this changing of the clothes, is not at all like Superman.
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Bubble-gum Cameos, Pop-tab Cars, and Kansa the Buffalo
These people make objects out of everyday things—not just because concrete and junk and chewing gum are cheap, but because they’re there. They work with what they know.
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No Taking Pictures
I take a breath and pop it into my mouth. At least she hasn’t tried to make me eat the fish eyes or chicken feet for sale in the night markets of Taipei.
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Three Interlinked Selections from A Whaler’s Dictionary
Etching is the art that understands that the only way to reach knowledge is to suffer the opposite. Like the whalers on board Pequod, we must cross the line.
The Commute (Hoboken, 1996)
On June 1, Simon & Schuster/Touchstone released Living on the Edge of the World, an anthology of essays from New Jersey writers about their home state. The book includes original selections from Tom Perrotta (Little Children), Joshua Braff (The Unthinkable Thoughts of Jacob Green), Jonathan Ames (Wake Up, Sir!), and many more refugee and remaining Jersey scribes. This brief piece from the anthology is adapted from Christian Bauman’s new novel, In Hoboken (Melville House, March 2008).
Cubs Saturday, 1984
The pennant wasn’t at stake, not, as I can best recollect, when
I awoke alone in my apartment in the eighth month of my marital
separation, glad about the sun and looking forward to being with
my two children again.
Yellowstoned
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Warbler Delight
Warblers are not beefy like geese; a goose on your head gets irksome, compressing your neck; but a warbler could spend the week there undetected, like a cherry or a shilling.
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Enough
Potatoes are dropped into a pan of steaming water. Turkey is layered with corn, tomatoes, rice, and cheese. I no longer know whose hands are mine.
