Toni Morrison: Tar Baby. 1981

People in town go inside because the sky weighs too much at noon. They wait for hot food with lots of pepper so the day will feel cooler by comparison. They drink sweet drinks and swallow bitter coffee to distract their insides from the heat and weight of the sky.
How very much like home. But [...]

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Alice Walker’s "The Flowers"

It seemed to Myop as she skipped lightly from hen house to pigpen to smokehouse that the days had never been as beautiful as these. The air held a keenness that made her nose twitch. The harvesting of the corn and cotton, peanuts and squash, made each day a golden surprise that caused excited little [...]

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My Shop around the Corner

When I was studying for my Masters in Pennsylvania, there was a cozy little bookstore near campus where I found pleasure browsing through its row upon row of books scattered in a seemingly random fashion. The intimacy of this small, non-chain-style bookshop made it a frequent hub for a few students, like myself, who, though [...]

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Jetlagged much indeed.

Following Jacquie’s extra long travel journal, here’s mine:
I leave the hotel at 6:20pm, arrive at JFK 7 as per the airline’s instructions to be at the airport 3 hours prior to departure. Well, guess what? Our check-in line was not in the least bit crowded and we checked in in 30 minutes. Entry through the [...]

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Meryl Streep in Central Park

Meryl Streep & Kevin Kline in Mother Courage, part of the Shakespeare in the Park productions.

Regardless of the weather turning cold and the rain getting heavier, the audience continued to pour in.

Then it started raining heavy, we took out our umbrellas, they had to stop. Streep wasn’t too happy about that [...]

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