Because I don’t currently have a television, I wasn’t able to catch much of this summer’s Olympic games. But I did see just enough to remind me that once upon a time—in the summer of 1992, to be exact—I harbored my own dreams of Olympic glory. I was ten, and a year or so earlier had happened to catch the women’s gymnastics World Championships on television. Immediately I fell in love with everything about the sport and its athletes, the... Read more
I have a toothache that’s getting worse, but I’m not going to a dentist because he’ll try to give me cancer. The word you’re looking for is hyperbole, and you are mistaken. Let me explain. What’s the first thing a new dentist does? X-rays. Why? A cynical man might point to the sizable profit margin. But, according to spokesmen for the molar-industrial complex, however, frequent x-rays are essential for my wellbeing. I might have a rotting root, a twisted tooth.... Read more
Close your eyes and clone yourself Build your heart an army To defend your innocence While you do everything wrong So opens “The Age of Worry,” the second track from John Mayer’s latest album, Born and Raised. I’ve been obsessively listening to that song and the majority of the album all summer. It’s almost become my personal soundtrack for 2012. That feels strange for me to type because I’ve never been what you could call a fan of Mayer’s. I’ve... Read more
My brother and I walked down an old road the other day. Our parents were just ahead of us, traveling along a path that once led toward a small tenant house and an equipment barn that no longer stand. It was a late summer afternoon, hot and dazzling despite the hour—the kind of afternoon in the South that makes you wonder if the light will ever surrender the sky—wonder if the night and coolness and sleep will in the end... Read more
Part One: Pigments on a Canvas Guest Post By Daniel Siedell With this post we are launching an occasional series by Daniel Siedell titled “The Poetics of Painting.” After twenty years of teaching art history, curating exhibitions, and writing about contemporary art, painting still baffles me. The more I study it and the more I talk to artists about it, the more impenetrably wonderful painting becomes. What I have learned over the years is how much faith is necessary to... Read more
Twelve years ago, during the short months of our engagement before my husband and I were married, I had the pleasure of registering for wedding presents. As a young child, I had watched all three of my older sisters select china, crystal, and sterling at Delta East-West gift shop owned by Helen Ward Nicholas and located on Main Street in my hometown. I watched them unwrap the towers of presents that resulted, invariably wrapped in slick white or shiny silver... Read more
I stood Saturday morning and looked up at the massive oak tree broken about twelve feet up the trunk and fallen on my roof. At eight in the morning the temperature was eighty-seven degrees and heading toward a high of 105. We had no power, and word was it would be out at least a week. Another tree had smashed through the back fence and lay across the yard, its small top branches bent and broken on the far fence.... Read more
This summer marks the eleventh year of my conversion. I’ve spent the past eleven years standing awkwardly at post-church coffee hours, nodding at sermons, and weeping at baptisms. And this summer, a few more motions were added to the litany of my frail, fragile movements in the church: I began crossing myself, bowing towards icons, and opening my mouth to receive warmed wine, blessed bread, the body of Christ pooled on the edge of a spoon. I became Orthodox in... Read more
For my ninth birthday, I was given a green leather-bound diary with a lock and key. I treasured it and wrote in it secretly every day. Here’s what I wrote daily during the months my mother was pregnant: Dear Diary, I hope Mommy has a baby boy. Yup, that was it… repeated day after day. Yet I felt I was confiding to the diary my deepest hopes and wishes. As a young adult, when I started to think of myself... Read more
Pay no attention to the man—or rather, the band—behind the curtain. Like Dorothy and her beloved band of Oz oddballs, Chris Thrash wondered what the curtain concealed. As a child in the ‘80s, Thrash frequented Showbiz Pizza Place and found himself fascinated by the Rock-afire Explosion, the franchise’s band of animatronic animals. Parents probably saw Showbiz’s mechanical musicians as pricey parlor tricks in a restaurant where pandemonium was more plentiful than pizza. To Thrash, however, they were wonders to behold.... Read more
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