A surprise piece of news this morning: I received notice I’d been selected as a finalist in the 2015 Maine Literary Awards Nonfiction Short Works category. The excerpts below – that made up the submission – are part of a larger piece called The Christmas Letters. Some of you are familiar with another excerpt from […]
Category Archives: Favorites
December
24
The Christmas Letters
posted by Adam Nathan
I look up from the black and white laptop screen and the whole world is in color just like in the Wizard of Oz. It’s 10:30 at night and I’ll be writing for hours, but I don’t care because I’m ready now. Daddy’s home for Christmas.
December
13
Dr. Brad
posted by Adam Nathan
For several years an old friend has posted Facebook aphorisms with the key words adorned in title case. Gratitude. Love. Look. Soulmate. Partner. Equinox. “I don’t believe I’m the “Healer”, but I DO believe I’m hear as Your Facilitator in Your Healing process.Dr.Brad” They were often punctuated incorrectly, spaces missed on the keys, double-entry on DrDr. They were […]
September
02
Top 10 Reasons To Use 1942 Farkas Vintage Eye Black Grease (Amazon Product Review)
posted by Adam Nathan
Amazon Product Review: “1942 Farkas Vintage Eye Black Grease“ In no way do I intend any SO-CALLED DISRESPECT, but the previous reviewer has never played football BY HER OWN ADMISSION and has no idea what she is talking about. Basically I COULD wash this product out from my jersey and it did not take FIVE […]
January
31
The Well-Tempered Songbook: #48 –You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go, Bob Dylan
posted by Adam Nathan
It was (I thought at the time) a song of love in the summer, when future loss can barely be imagined except as a sparkling plaything for the happiness of now: goodbye as imagined in a world of dragon clouds and lazy rivers and French poetry by the riverside.
December
15
Plane Crash
posted by Adam Nathan
I still remember that the captain communicated with the passengers fairly directly about their situation, and everybody in the plane knew that they were about to die, or probably about to die, but even so there were things to do. Everyone was still going to do this thing and that thing in a certain order. […]
December
06
My Father
posted by Adam Nathan
It’s as if he thought his children would be strangers he would get to know, by and by, from across some agreeable paternal divide, from over the upper edge of the New York Times, or through the rear view mirror angled cleverly into the backseat.
October
06
Chevy Vega vs. MGB
posted by Adam Nathan
To be fair to Mom, there was a deep mantra at work in the family’s automotive life. The steady Tibetan drone of “cars are not toys, cars are not toys, cars are not toys” – helped remind me that cars are the neuron-thin floss that keep us tethered to the Spaceship Life and protect us […]
September
23
Twelve Foot Hawaiian Wave
posted by Adam Nathan
There are plenty of artists in my mother’s collection to whom I’m indifferent. I certainly didn’t like all her friends. I flick, flick, flick past Leadbelly and Bessie Smith and Joan Sutherland and Bennie Goodman and gloomy Wagner. I’m flat on Bel Canto, 45’s that need swirly plastic inserts, anything in mono even if it […]
September
23
True Love
posted by Adam Nathan
Then, foolishly, I waited and hoped, but Olivia Newton-John, the Australian goddess of song, did not write me back. Not even a mass-produced, machine autographed headshot. Nothing. The brutal, unrequited void. * When I was seven years old things got so musically out of hand I was forbidden to play the Carpenters when other family […]
