Wednesday, February 26, 2014

Cafe Yesterday

On March 13, 2013, I found out that my lifelong friend Barbara Weinstein had been killed the previous day in an auto accident. Never before had I experienced shock: the slowness, the sudden lack of familiarity with the most mundane things. Somewhere in that day I went to Cafe Yesterday. They called out what I thought was my coffee. I put creamer in it and then realized it wasn't mine. I did something I never would normally do: I failed to acknowledge my mistake, just walked away. Behind me I could hear the barista bitching: Who did this? This is expensive coffee, now it's ruined. I said nothing. Nothing, nothing at all.

Wednesday, February 12, 2014

From Threesome, my latest project


“Digame,” she said. Talk to me. They’d honeymooned in Spain, taking the train from Barcelona along the coast to Valencia and then to Alicante, and eventually winding up in Madrid. All along the way they heard Spainards answering their cell phones. Digame, they said. Direct and to the point. Almost too brusque as far as she was concerned, but this was her first trip overseas and she was willing to idealize just about anything she saw. It was only years later that she realized she’d hated Spain. The men looked at you as an object and the women, many wearing skintight purple pants, evaluated you as their competition. Parties rang out in the streets up until all hours. There was religion, morality and the need to drink as much as humanly possible.

Workplace, Davis

Sunday, February 2, 2014