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An orange can’t be too round. / At night milk is black. / The first wife remembers everything. / The tall perspire first.
September 1986The “Face” On Mars
An Interview With Richard Hoagland
I realized that I was looking at something that was either a complete waste of time, or the most important discovery of the twentieth century if not of our entire existence on earth. There is no middle ground.
July 1986Three Cities
A dozen men sit in comfortless plastic chairs staring at the floor. No one speaks. No one moves. Sunlight pours through yellow blinds into a room without time. It is clear that one is among the damned.
July 1986Literal-Mindedness And Its Cure
For about fifteen minutes every day I worry about AIDS or herpes or Pentagon cost overruns. It’s not that they have any great effect on me, it’s just that I am a broad-based, categorical worrier.
July 1986Relieving Ramona
I like Ramona. I want to win the lottery, pay her brother back for the car, bounce her and the baby out of the attic apartment.
June 1986Mataji
I first met Mataji at the river. I had travelled a long way by bus, boat, and truck. The Middle Eastern countries were hard to travel through. I was pelted with rocks once. Women just don’t travel alone in Muslim areas.
June 1986Calligraphy Class
The artist speaks of the “muse” and the musician says “I was hot,” but in their hearts there is only mysterious joy: I was present at a beautiful event and yet it was not “I.”
June 1986Personal, political, provocative writing delivered to your doorstep every month—without a single ad.
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