SONIA. You love no one?Austin Pendleton, your theater license is revoked. Keep your grubby paws off of Chekhov. Man is forgetful, but God remembers... a really badly-directed play.
ASTROFF. Not a soul. I only feel a sort of tenderness for your old nurse
for old-times' sake. The peasants are all alike; they are stupid and
live in dirt, and the educated people are hard to get along with. One
gets tired of them. All our good friends are petty and shallow and see
no farther than their own noses; in one word, they are dull. Those that
have brains are hysterical, devoured with a mania for self-analysis.
They whine, they hate, they pick faults everywhere with unhealthy
sharpness. They sneak up to me sideways, look at me out of a corner of
the eye, and say: "That man is a lunatic," "That man is a wind-bag." Or,
if they don't know what else to label me with, they say I am strange. I
like the woods; that is strange. I don't eat meat; that is strange, too.
Simple, natural relations between man and man or man and nature do not
exist.
Friday, January 23, 2009
Yes, it is too bad, really.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
There's ya problem right the-ah
New Jersey Turnpike. Going 65. Snowing. Someone cut me off. I took evasive action. Lost control. Rammed into the rail. Spun around. Hit a guy in the next lane. Sat trembling for a while, out of cold and out of fear. Cops came, wearing baby blue. Asked me if I'd fallen asleep. "No," I said. "I lost control." Got a summons for careless driving. Tow truck arrived. Hauled me and my car off the Turnpike. Said he'd had another dead guy just yesterday. Uncle came to pick me up. Took a bath. Popped a vicodin. Pled not guilty. Rode in to the city for the title. Rode back out. Signed the title over to the wrecker. Checked the box saying "has been wrecked." Took the plates and one last look. And walked away.
Monday, January 12, 2009
Thursday, January 8, 2009
The Bones of Mendihuaca, in Winter VQR
Colombian military escort the forensic team in the Sierra Nevada of Santa Marta.
In its Winter 2009 issue, the Virginia Quarterly Review publishes my report on the exhumation of victims of paramilitary violence in Colombia. Complex, gruesome and under-reported, the injustices of Colombia's vast paramilitary power remain unresolved. Here's what happens when the trappings of order are cynically deployed in a lawless land.
Maira Alejandra Martínez Suarez is sweeping away another layer of dirt when the bullets come flying overhead. She’s twenty-six years old, and with her French braid tucked under a brand-new baseball cap, she looks more like a rec-league softball pitcher than a forensic anthropologist under fire. She grabs her shovel, paintbrush, and dustpan and, standing in an open grave, peeks over the ledge of moist earth. She scans for incoming fire across the clearing dotted with body-sized rectangular pits. Her Colombian army bodyguards, belly-down, shoot out into the surrounding brush. A ranch corral is too far for escape. She crouches, comes eye to eye with a silver tooth in a half-buried skull and starts to pray, lying in a grave she’s digging.Subscription required to read the full story. Better yet, support VQR with a newsstand purchase.
Sunday, January 4, 2009
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Outside bloggin no more
I'm ending my stint here as a contributor to Outside's blog, but look for more bylines in the magazine. A final field test entry:
Field Tested: BaileyWorks Messenger Bag
Was it North Face that pioneered expedition-class gear as casual wear? I can't pinpoint it, but some time in the 1990's, I remember seeing people walking down the streets of New York with scuba gear on a rainy day. Hey, I'm all for testing products in extreme conditions, but there comes a point where pro-grade should be left to the pros.
Enter the BaileyWorks SuperPro Messenger Bag.
The Portsmouth, New Hampshire, bag designer describes this baby as "Built for the Working Bike Messenger" and loads it up with a Cordura shell, waterproof lining, a blink-light clip and reflective strip, and options for customization when ordering online. More importantly, it has an innovative "split strap," which is a kind of extra harness that snugs the bag across your chest and keeps the one-shoulder bag from flopping forward. The strap is reversible, so you can wear the bag on your right or left shoulder.
The SuperPro runs from $145 in small to $185 for XX-large (presumably for that extra yard of pricey Cordura?). And, true, there ain't a blueprint, estate deal or urgent law brief it can't handle.
Now, are you a professional bike messenger, racing through the streets of New York, Chicago and San Fran on a tarot-card-studded fixie? Probably not. You're probably like me. I'm a daily bike commuter lugging my laptop, lunch and papers to the office, on the same steel 18-speed I use for weekend warrior rides. For a messenger bag, I use this:
It's a piece of swag (thanks, Salon.com) from the Cartoon Network, promoting a show called Out of Jimmy's Head. It's canvas. It has lots of pockets: two on the front plus one on each side, plus a zippered pocket inside, and some loops for pens. It has a decent Velcro closure for the flap that isn't so aggressive it rips your sweater off. The strap is adjustable and, uh, reversible. What's more, the bag is completely waterproof -- when I wrap it, or its contents, in a plastic grocery bag from my local Albertsons.
And as nice as the BaileyWorks bag is, I'm not going to trade in my trusty satchel for it.
--Matthew Fishbane
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