I Never Wrote the Most Important Story I Ever Wrote, Conclusion

Part 1 of this essay may be found here. Part 2 of this essay may be found here. Part 3 of this essay may be found here. Part 4 of this essay may be found here. Part 5 of this essay may be found here. Part 6 of this essay may be found here. Part … Continue reading I Never Wrote the Most Important Story I Ever Wrote, Conclusion →

Part 1 of this essay may be found here. Part 2 of this essay may be found here. Part 3 of this essay may be found here. Part 4 of this essay may be found here. Part 5 of this essay may be found here. Part 6 of this essay may be found here. The … Continue reading I Never Wrote the Most Important Story I Ever Wrote, Part 7 →

I Never Wrote the Most Important Story I Ever Wrote, Part 6

Part 1 of this essay may be found here. Part 2 of this essay may be found here. Part 3 of this essay may be found here. Part 4 of this essay may be found here. Part 5 of this essay may be found here. Early in Chapter 7 (Reading Is Fundamental) of my Interrogating … Continue reading I Never Wrote the Most Important Story I Ever Wrote, Part 6 →

I Never Wrote the Most Important Story I Ever Wrote, Part 5

Part 1 of this essay may be found here. Part 2 of this essay may be found here. Part 3 of this essay may be found here. Part 4 of this essay may be found here. When I sat down to write this multi-part essay – which has taken on an interrogating memory life of … Continue reading I Never Wrote the Most Important Story I Ever Wrote, Part 5 →

Interrogating memory: The Beatles, wax museums and a diner mystery solved

To the extent my writing over the last three years has a theme (or perhaps even a brand), it is what I call interrogating memory. At one level, this is just a fancy term for “fact-checking,” as in looking through my elementary school report cards (I am missing the one for third grade[1]) to confirm … Continue reading Interrogating memory: The Beatles, wax museums and a diner mystery solved →

Road trips and the fine art of tipping (Epilogue)

Following the election of Republican Donald J. Trump as president of the United States in 2016, I immediately began to donate small sums to a wide variety of organizations and political candidates. And as the race to the be the 2020 Democratic presidential nominee began to take shape, I began making $10 donations to my … Continue reading Road trips and the fine art of tipping (Epilogue) →

Road trips and the fine art of tipping (Part 2)

We pulled out of our Brookline driveway in my wife Nell’s Honda Pilot, bound for the Hilton in Bath, Maine, at 10:15 am. Within an hour-and-a-half, we had left our golden retriever safely in the care of Nell’s mother and were driving north on I-95. Unwittingly, though, we had joined the molasses-slow line of cars … Continue reading Road trips and the fine art of tipping (Part 2) →

Road trips and the fine art of tipping (Part I)

A few weeks ago, I finally watched Reservoir Dogs. I am very squeamish about blood (seeing it can literally cause me physical pain[1]), and I knew there was a great deal of bloodletting in Quentin Tarantino’s 1992 heist-gone-wrong neo-noir masterpiece. Plus, a friend had once informed me she could never hear the Stealers Wheel song … Continue reading Road trips and the fine art of tipping (Part I) →