Stories from all categories
An hour ago I made friends with two Israeli dudes selling Vietnamese knives on a drearily dripping, cheerily lighted Berlin market. It is so warming and cozy to wander under damp vinyl awnings and it ...read more
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Just now walking down the street the most miraculous small experience. It's growing dark and the shop windows glow like lamps. I came out of a side street full of bars and cafes onto a ...read more
The place I've sublet has a shelf of Joanna Trollope novels and I've just reread two of them. It's so interesting learning all the signs she uses to indicate class. In the gentry, rudeness indicates ...read more
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The problem of hipsters. Nobody is one, yet everyone complains about them. It's a bit like environmental damage: everybody thinks someone else needs to change. I am listening to the couple at the next table ...read more
On New Year's Eve after a quiet dinner party at the home of a Romanian artist & Swedish poet, I climbed the round hill that gives Kreuzberg its name: cross mountain. In the dark it ...read more
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First date in a cafe. "They always play such excellent jazz here," he is saying. "Try the cakes, they're always good." "Right," the girl says lightly. He has over-ordered, wanting to induct her into his ...read more
A guy in an aggressively shiny waxed car reefed in front of me all of a sudden, as I was travelling by bike towards a red traffic light. There was nowhere to go but brake. ...read more
chapter xi: the window does not trap what it views At the wilderness fundraiser we are third from the top, through no merit of our own. We are a last-minute substitution, they’ve bought tickets expecting ...read more
I feel widowed. I am winnowing. Dancing through this manuscript one last time with my tiny stave ~ of ink ~ finding out the hollow places where the old log gives ~ and pressing down ...read more