Talks With American Students
It is important to be aware of what is, not what should be, because the “what should be” is a fiction, a myth, a romantic notion, which all religions and idealists throughout the ages have nurtured and exploited. What good is the ideal of nonviolence if I am full of violence?
Flies are constantly present in human life. They investigate the baby’s diaper and have to be shooed away from the dying grandmother’s face. They cannot be ignored.
My friend is rushing toward Jasmine. Her scream reverberates in my mind, with a quality of despair that surprises me, as if she knows something I don’t.
Howie got his guitar the day the Soviets invaded Czechoslovakia, and he named it Elijah. It made a big impression on him: there he was in his living room tuning this new, magic thing, watching the tanks roll into Prague on television.
We’re in the check-out line and I’m putting the groceries on the counter. This is the hardest part of shopping with a two-year-old.
*NOTE: Original copies of this issue are no longer available. Unbound, laser-printed copies will be provided for print orders.
“Anchoring,” going to a secondhand store, watching the boys play pool
It doesn’t matter who my father was; it matters who I remember he was.
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