“It’s not the heat, it’s the humidity” A… —

A story of love, longing, and stone-cold ghosting — The rain woke me, lying in a bed that was soft but now was hard. The window was half open and the rain sound filtered through the screen and dogged my late night thoughts. I can’t quite describe how it felt to be lying there, still and wet, with planes…

It only took 35 years to come up with a band name — Juliet wanted Romeo so bad. Unfortunately he had the wrong name. Their families, the Capulets and Montagues, were the gangland equivalent of matter and anti-matter. If only her lover were called something else. “What’s in a name?” Juliet crowed from her balcony. …

Contents and Bibliographies — Britannica’s Great Ideas Today annual supplements to the Great Books of the Western World are fun intellectual time capsules to explore. The theme for the 1964 annual edition of The Great Ideas Today was relations between the United States and Europe. Part I features these articles: “The U.S. and the…

The benefits may surprise you — I’ve been reading The Creative Act: A Way of Being, a set of meditations on the creative process by Rick Rubin, the famed record producer. I received the book as a kind gift from a friend and have been lapping it up like a thirsty dog. In one of the…

She was sick, sick of being wanted, and wanted out. A story. — Shirley was attending a satellite reception for the annual Health Insurance Institute of America convention. She skittered through the crowd like a pebble on a sheet of water. People acted like it was a big privilege to be there. Her perspective? Not so much. She had been sick for days…

Poem —

When wish fulfillment runs off the rails — “The Veldt” is the lead-off story in Ray Bradbury’s collection The Illustrated Man. 72 years ago, Ray Bradbury imagined a dystopian America rife with technological conveniences by way of domestic microcosm: a nuclear family comfortably ensconced in a cutting-edge house. …

A poem —