From The Recesses

Some 15 years ago, my parents took a trip to the old familial sod in Ireland. They were traveling with my father’s cousin Barbara and her husband Joe. For as near as we can tell, it was the first time a Tallon from our clutch had returned across the pond since arriving in New York… »

Just under a year ago Alex, a former student and close friend, called me with the news that Anna Parachkevova had been murdered by her husband while she slept in their apartment in Brussels. It was never a message I expected to receive about anyone I knew and loved, at least not from that part… »

I don’t have any rational way to explain Oriel Laurent’s presence in my life, but I’ve got to chalk her up to something. When my non-religious friends hear the story, they tend to rationalize it as random chance, pure dumb luck. But they have the luxury of leaving her on the far side of their… »

Regular readers of this magazine likely know that I spent 13 years teaching high school in Brooklyn, NY, before moving to Antigua. They also probably know that shortly after arriving here I’d generated an enormous bar tab, and had to put myself into indentured servitude in the mezcal bar of Café No Sé to try… »

Earlier this morning, my mother sent me a note through the interwebs. She said that the East Coast was in a deep freeze and that New York City was bracing for a monster snowstorm that might drop up to two feet around the Metro Area. I was telling a friend about the email and the… »

With the exception of my first few years, I grew up in a neighborhood essentially devoid of ethnic diversity. When I was really young my family lived on lower Mary Street, one of the few blocks of Binghamton, NY that could reasonably be considered a multi-racial ghetto. Yet, by the time I’d turned five we’d… »

It is standard-issue humor amongst education professionals that the three reasons teaching is a great job are “June, July and August,” and throughout a 13 year career, I wouldn’t have disagreed. I’ll never understand the “two weeks vacation for your first five years” insanity of most professions in the States. Madness. Complete and utter madness…. »

Back when I was a teenager one of my favorite words was “cosmic.” It’s kind of embarrassing now, but I’m sure you had your own silly colloquialisms, so no harm done. I remember many “cosmic” moments in the adolescent years: like when Craig and I wandered up to Grand Boulevard and were hammered to the… »

My grandmother died in late January of 2005, at 93 years of age. The day before she ended this dance, she and I were planning her 94th birthday party and joking about the hospital food. Sometime in the evening a nurse came in and said the doctors wanted to start her on a… »

I went to a Christmas piano recital in the States recently. This is not something I do regularly anymore, though between the years of eight and thirteen I struggled through more than a lifetime’s share of my own. I was there because a couple of kids I know are taking lessons, and their mother asked… »