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Chevrolet Caprice
A 1987 Chevrolet Caprice. On a Tuesday in late August, on my way to the ferry landing at Thirty-Fourth Street, I saw a huge, white, rusted-out Chevy Caprice make an illegal turn off FDR Drive, nearly...
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New Words
Sometime in the third grade, a girl in my class began to claim she was ambidextrous. Previously, this girl had said she wanted to be a marine biologist. She also claimed to have athlete’s foot. This...
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Beautiful Image
From a 1918 ad for Radior, a face cream containing radium.If I hate anything that smacks of “self-care”—and I do—I come by this antipathy honestly. I don’t just mean my mother’s disdain, bordering on...
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Mother Approved
Only the best for my boy: the actress Helen Twelvetrees and her son, Jack Woody, in Sydney circa 1936.I used to have a superpower. I never told anyone, of course—that’s the rule with powers—and in the...
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Books by Covers, Et Cetera
For a kid, it’s better than your name in lights: your name in appliqué.Back when the world was new and there weren’t three Sadies in every kindergarten class, I worshipped the Lillian Vernon catalog....
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Pink Cigarettes
Lighting up.Why not?I smoked my first cigarette with three or four friends near the pond behind our middle school. We obeyed all the stereotypes, puffing and passing, accusing one another of not...
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Plastic Presidents
The Marx Presidents.Growing up, our house was filled with presidents and almost presidents. WIN WITH WILLKIE! blared a sign on our front door. Wilson, having “kept us out of war,” looked down...
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The Road to Toluca
“As I let the shotgun drop the butt hit the bricks and the second shell fired into me...”From the cover of The Child PoetAn excerpt from The Child Poet.One Saturday toward noon in January 1951, three...
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Together Young
Revisited is a series in which writers look back on a work of art they first encountered long ago. Here, Jen George revisits Balthus’s painting Thérèse Dreaming.Balthus, Thérèse Dreaming, 1938, oil on...
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The Trojan Horse of Pop
George Michael. I never minded being thought of as a pop star. People have always thought I wanted to be seen as a serious musician, but I didn’t, I just wanted people to know that I was absolutely...
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Skate Escape: On Minding the Gap
Zack Mulligan and Keire Johnson in Minding the Gap. Photo: Bing Liu. In 1949, Life magazine called my hometown of Rockford, Illinois, a place as “nearly typical of the U.S. as any city can be.” Today...
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New Words
Sometime in the third grade, a girl in my class began to claim she was ambidextrous. Previously, this girl had said she wanted to be a marine biologist. She also claimed to have athlete’s foot. This...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Beautiful Image
From a 1918 ad for Radior, a face cream containing radium. If I hate anything that smacks of “self-care”—and I do—I come by this antipathy honestly. I don’t just mean my mother’s disdain, bordering on...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Mother Approved
Only the best for my boy: the actress Helen Twelvetrees and her son, Jack Woody, in Sydney circa 1936. I used to have a superpower. I never told anyone, of course—that’s the rule with powers—and in the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Books by Covers, Et Cetera
For a kid, it’s better than your name in lights: your name in appliqué. Back when the world was new and there weren’t three Sadies in every kindergarten class, I worshipped the Lillian Vernon catalog....
View ArticleClik here to view.
Pink Cigarettes
Lighting up. Why not? I smoked my first cigarette with three or four friends near the pond behind our middle school. We obeyed all the stereotypes, puffing and passing, accusing one another of not...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Plastic Presidents
The Marx Presidents. Growing up, our house was filled with presidents and almost presidents. WIN WITH WILLKIE! blared a sign on our front door. Wilson, having “kept us out of war,” looked down...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Road to Toluca
“As I let the shotgun drop the butt hit the bricks and the second shell fired into me…” From the cover of The Child Poet An excerpt from The Child Poet. One Saturday toward noon in January 1951, three...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Together Young
Revisited is a series in which writers look back on a work of art they first encountered long ago. Here, Jen George revisits Balthus’s painting Thérèse Dreaming. Balthus, Thérèse Dreaming, 1938, oil on...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Trojan Horse of Pop
George Michael. I never minded being thought of as a pop star. People have always thought I wanted to be seen as a serious musician, but I didn’t, I just wanted people to know that I was absolutely...
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