Memoirous

When I moved to Chicago in 1982 New Town was just starting to be called Boys Town—now when I say New Town my daughter has no idea what I’m talking about. She only knows it is called Boys Town. In the early 80s the parade jammed the streets of Boys Town, people marched in their underwear and united in solidarity. Yesterday an estimated 1 million marched and the parade takes up almost the entire North Side.   The trains were packed going into the city. In the early 80s it was easy to stumble into the parade; there wasn’t always a lot of publicity. That would be absolutely impossible today. It is an event on par with the Chicago Marathon as it threads its way through the city. Roads are shut down as revelers take over the streets and sidewalks. The beachfront at Montrose where there is an after-party was shut down because it reached capacity. Then—people were dying of AIDS. By the millions. Today people are living with AIDS. Then coming out meant exile and divided famili...

The Theft of Memory Jonathan Kozol This past Sunday was Father’s Day, where we remember our fathers and honor them. The Theft of Memory is Kozol’s tribute to his father who passed away in 2008 age 102 years. So roughly the son knew the father for 70-some years. That’s a long time. Yet towards the end, which seems reasonable, the father’s memory began going. The subtitle of the book is: "Losing My Father One Day at a Time." This book will resonate with families dealing with the effects of Alzheimer’s and dementia. Or even families dealing with loved ones in general. It hasn’t been quite a year yet since I lost a dear friend, Fred Burkhart and though his mind was always strong, there were times when because of physical weakness or medications or even just approaching death, he would zone out, go into his own world. And, I would think, this is how it is to lose someone. Not quite, and not yet, but a foretaste of grief. It is the long good-bye. Kozol chron...

I can’t stop reading about this issue—about reverse passing, or passing, or identity and self-identity or . . . it’s hard to put my finger on what makes this case so intriguing. It boils down to: Who am I? Am I the sum of my parents, a product of my community, or the evolutionary offspring of my DNA? Is it in the genes or in the brain—who we are? These questions often come up when looking at false memoirs—something this blog talks about a lot. I’ve always been fascinated by people who whip up whole stories, whole novels, whole worlds about their past. Some might disagree and say they are just stretching the truth, but in every stretching the act of lying not only affects the person telling the lie but the ones deceived or pulled into the untruth. Telling the truth about ourselves is important on so many different levels. Nevertheless, it is a complex question of one’s identity. One not so easy to parse. There have been times when I’ve identified more with a specifi...

SUBMIT 2015 NANO Prize The seventh-annual NANO Prize, awarding publication and $1,000 to a previously unpublished work of fiction 300 words or fewer, opened on April 1, and will be judged by  Amber Sparks!   All entrants will receive a one-year subscription to  NANO Fiction  and winners will be announced in mid-September. Rules and Guidelines:  All entries must be unpublished and 300 words or fewer. While there will be only one winner of the contest, all submitted pieces will be considered for publication. The entry fee is $20 for up to three shorts. Please paste all three works into the submission manager as one submission. You may enter as many times as you like. Each separate entry requires its own entry fee of $20. Entry fees are nonrefundable. Please withdraw your submission immediately if taken elsewhere. The entrant’s name should not appear anywhere in the body of the submission. Friends and family of the editors are not eligible...

Last week I received a distressing e-mail. 5 Dead Birds at the corner of Wilson and Sheridan. There they were on the sidewalk, bloodied and battered. Since the e-mail had gone out to several people there was a thread starting, assumptions on what caused the casualties. There is a 10-story building there, perhaps they ran into the building or the building’s windows. Perhaps the street lights confused them. It had been a windy weekend, so maybe wind patterns had something to do with the melee. While a friend was down at the corner checking the scene out another bird fell down, almost hitting him. The photos are shocking. So many deaths have taken place at that same corner. Two years ago 5 people were shot there. All black males in their early 20s, late teens. They were sitting on the steps of the uptown Baptist Church when a car driving by opened up on them. One was shot fatally in the head. The birds were identified as yellow-billed cuckoos, though at times w...

Silence Once Begun Jesse Ball Who is Jesse Ball? He lives in Chicago and teaches literary dreaming and the act of lying at the School of the Art Institute. And he keeps no engagements, delivers no speeches, and cannot be found elsewhere—except in hardcover and paperback. I just discovered him this weekend. Or rather his novel, Silence Once Begun , which sounds like a secret. With so many words, there can be silence. Words suffused with silence. It is the kind of work that send the reader into a Zen-like trance. Most post-modern books tend to have the look and feel of a fast-paced video game with eye candy ie violence and sex to keep the reader interested. Not this one. Even in its questioning there is gentle indictment. It might also be the only novel I’ve read told primarily in dialogue. Its approach to story is very intuitive, forcing the reader to read between the lines. It is told through conversation and the silence between words. I like a book...

Susan Sontag in a book of essays, Regarding the Pain of Others , writes about Collective Memory. She was referring to perhaps collective guilt surrounding the holocaust and how a nation with a strong collective memory also carries guilt. Many Americans have a collective memory of 9/11 coupled also with personal narratives about where they were that day and how it has impacted their life Nevertheless, most memories are singular—though a few are collective or work in tandem with others. I might have a memory, my own particular interpretation of a memory you have shared. My friend Hilde recollected to me that once she was running by the lake when out of the mist she saw the mast of a tall ship. It seemed immediately odd that it would be so close to the shore. A man on deck called out. The rest was confusing—he didn’t want to be rescued, he did want help. He didn’t want to leave his boat, but if the Coast Guard came they were responsible for saving only him and not the vessel....

A mash up between an NPR article by Linton Weeks, “Defeating Polio”/my own view point Polio by Any Other Name Between 1937 and 1997, it is estimated that more than 457,000 people in the U.S. contracted some form of polio. Afraid of polio, afraid of everything, it gave us permission to think it was out there— and not inside of us. It is a disease that attacks the central nervous system and often leaves its victims partially or fully paralyzed. At the swimming pool, not immediately changing out of a wet swim suit, sitting in a damp sand box, my mother warned me. Now I wonder: Was she afraid of polio or afraid of losing me? Polio was at its height in the early 1950s. There was no prevention; there was no cure. And, what exactly is fear? an emotion so strong it imitates love, a shadow, an echo, a deceit. I’m afraid of dying, therefore I love death. Coming back to school in September there were always empty desks. This isn’...

Sooo Friday I had two root canals. Yes, you read that right. Two root canals on the same day. On the same tooth. It was a day that went from bad to worse to worser, before ending up feeling like victory. It began with molar #3 and what felt like a pus bag under my right eye. My entire jaw ached. I went to the dentist and she said it looks like you need a root canal. Somehow that information sounded comforting because it was at least an answer to the pain. She sent me home with a script for antibiotics. Thus, began my search for a dentist who performs root canals on people with no money. I found someone who goes by The Root Canal Doctor on the internet here in Chicago. Maybe I’ve read too many books about the holocaust, but a doctor dedicated to root canals? His website said to just sit back and relax—I’d be in good hands. Again, the words relax and root canal seem like an oxymoron. One is not like the other. At noon Friday I hopped on my bike and after a block it b...