A Navy Blue Sigh – Reading The Language of Baklava by Diana Abu-Jaber
"Eventually, I hear footsteps crunching along the side of the house through the glazed snow and my mother's navy blue sigh through the frozen air." from The Language of Baklava by Diana Abu-Jaber, p. 75 Can a sigh be navy blue? Diana Abu-Jaber's unusual way of using color to describe bodily movements, appearances and sounds is what impressed me [...]
The Post-Residency Interview
It's nice when you poke about cyberspace in the evening, too tired to do anything productive, but not quite ready for bed yet, and discover something neat and life-affirming, such as an interview with yourself. Yesterday I was following up on the thank-you email from the freelancer who had interviewed me a while ago for the "Around Oak Park" [...]
The Gift of a Poetry Reading
Yesterday I treated myself: I went to a poetry reading. Normally, I am loath to schlep up to the north side of the city on a Sunday afternoon, but it turned out that my former student Marcia Pradzinski's book release party happened during my son's basketball game time, when I was schlepping anyway. It was meant to be! So I [...]
Happy Tu Bishvat!
Today is the Jewish festival of Tu Bishvat, the New Year of the Trees, and in honor of this celebration that seems out of place here, my article How My Kids and I Celebrate Tu Bishevat in Wintry Chicago appeared in Kveller. The above photo is from one of my trips to the Garfield Conservatory, and I'm going to try to [...]
Life without my Laptop
My laptop died a week ago. It was six years old, and I can't really blame the thing. It held up pretty well being logged around the world. Nevertheless, I have been discombobulated ever since. Thankfully it wasn't the hard drive that crashed, so I didn't have to fret about my files being lost (I'm also pretty good about backing up [...]
Looking Up at the Snow
It snowed in thick flakes the other day. As I looked up at the sky from my window, with ever more fluffs of white tumbling towards me, I felt that rare marvel at the planet we live on. If all those bouncing snowflakes and their sheer endless supply aren't one of great manifestations of our universe's abundance, I don't know [...]