The Road and The Vaster Wilds: Anti-Odysseys (Part 3 in an ongoing series)

By happenstance, I read Cormac McCarthy’s 2007 apocalyptic novel The Road and followed it with Lauren Groff’s latest, The Vaster Wilds. It was September, technically still summer, but both of these novels take place in life-threateningly cold weather, and each author made me feel that cold, that terror of being consumed by the natural world, an awareness of the scarcity of essential resources, the distrust of other human beings–even our intimates. As I revisit these novels today, fittingly on Halloween, when the air in Massachusetts has grown chill and my body continues to fight against that novel corona virus, I find myself sharing some of these primal fears. When the terrain is unknown and the enemy invisible, who and what can we trust?

River Roads

Here’s the strange thing about me: I can completely forget I’m a musician until I arrive at the gig. It’s as though that part of me is a set of clothes for another season, kept in a moth-proof box in the attic, out of mind until the weather changes.

The Surprising Cure for My A.D.D.

My poem came from Sarah Sullivan’s prompt to “copy” the poem “Small Talk” by Kirsten Shu-yin Chen. As listeners to my band The Nields know, I am a big fan of borrowing/stealing the forms and tropes of others to make something new of my own.

By the way, I have been using that Pilates bar regularly, and to give credit where it’s due, I’ll say that I got it from a company called “Stretched Fusion.” They did not pay me to say this. And if they offered me big bucks for endorsing them, I would take the money and run.

FAWM Halfway Check In

It’s more than halfway through February, and I have seven songs written. I need to do something today or risk being mad at myself. We’re in the Adirondacks for the…

Go Where the Love Is, Not Where the Love Should Be

My son is in love with a girl a year ahead of him in school who refuses to play with him. He has lost all the color in his cheeks…