“Drink up,” the man said to his daughter. “I don’t want to,” the girl said. “You need to understand how this feels,” said the man.
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Fight Night
The recent Pacquiao-Márquez boxing bout was full of lust, anger, calculation, sport—the same as what’s occurring in Zuccotti Park, in Congress, in every household across America. Boxing is the sport of the now, and its lessons will be useful tonight.
Continue readingThe Ornithologist’s Last Wish
“The geese are winging in from the north. First a hairline thread in the muted horizon, then a cross-stitch in the sky over Portaferry, in County Down, Northern Ireland. Soon a dark and honking seam gliding in against the ebbing tidal narrows, breaking rank at last to alight in ungainly spray atop the waters of Strangford Lough …”
Continue readingIn The Deep End
“The shade held no allure for me – I was here for a belly full of booze and the insouciant regret of a peeling sunburn. I’d sleep it off tomorrow and be back in the rotation on Monday with a fresh take on Herb’s high-minded theories on risk versus reward.”
Continue readingSympathetic Magic
“You hated going to the dojo at first: the uniformity of the place, the rote memorization required to learn the creeds, the repetitive back and forth of the techniques. And the forms, the way the Blacks moved together out there on the mats, dancing along to the soundless beat of what must be some kind of retarded disco house music, dipping and kneeling, twirling and kicking at nothing but the wide mirror running the length of the wall.”
Continue readingBootstraps
“I made my way quietly out back and sat in Helga’s whitewashed porch swing, listening to the first faint sounds of big band music drift out of Helga’s open windows and into the cooling summer air. The darkness was moving in slow from the east, interrupted by the sparse waltz of the increasingly emboldened fireflies. The urgency with which they flared up stood in stark contrast to their measured fade back to black, like lit matchsticks being tossed in slow motion out into the purpling horizon, burning slowly down to dust.”
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