This is the last place anyone saw Elias Croehe. He was drinking a tropical milkshake and staring out at the ocean. After he disappeared, his family and friends looked for him everywhere. On the beach, around the neighborhood. They went back to the park by the beach every day for two weeks. To no avail. The Coast Guard kept watch for his body but…
Written and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen, The Big Lebowski is most notably a delightful sendup of film noir tropes, a particular twist on the “man who knew too much.” Drawn into a series of strange events due to a case of mistaken identity, Jeff Lebowski is a man who knows far too little about anything other than bowling. By the end of…
“I’m going to get one of those truffle-hunting dogs.” “I thought they use pigs to hunt truffles.” “I’ve seen dogs do it.” “Yeah?” “Some dogs. Dogs with good noses.” “Dogs with pig noses?” “I don’t know about that.” “Some people use dogs to hunt truffles.” “Dogs don’t eat truffles.” “Pigs eat truffles?” “Pigs love truffles. You know how we like bacon? That’s how pigs…
Ropes soaked rain-wet stretch taut across the back of the beast and secure its burden. Traversed alongside the great mountain, a narrow path winds towards the summit. Loosed pebbles dance over the edge of the road and skitter into the valley maw. A half-blind eye cast toward heaven, the other surveying the cautious limn of the abyss, each step adds one, each foot adds…
The sun sat shadowed in a cloud of dust as we waited to march toward the sea. Ahead the trumpets blared the triumph march. The drumbeat of boots matched our thumping hearts. Mounted leaders adorned with pallid glory portend: War is our end and our fate is folly. Sages say some men are born meant to lead, and other men thus are born to…
Back in the Eighties sometimes we would spend long hours drinking cocktails and talking about the things people talk about when they spend long hours drinking cocktails. There was an old editor who lived in the village and enjoyed taking small groups of young writers out for dinner and drinks. We usually met at this grand old hotel near the plaza, a vast adobe…
A Chinese philosopher once told me each person has two birthdays: the day they physically entered the world, and the day they were conceived. He was obviously a life-begins-at-conception kind of guy. In fact, we initially crossed paths because I punched him in the gut when he was trying to block access to an abortion clinic. The punch had little effect. For a little…
In the Kingdom of the Blind, the one-eyed man is supreme, and a one-eyed Jack could become a one-eyed King. In the Kingdom of the Blind, the eyeglass salesmen go broke while the monocle salesman grows fat with affluence due to his exclusive arrangement with one-eyed King Jack. The royal eye deserves the best after all. A different monocle for every occasion! The kingdom…
My friend MacGilleathain, art critic and budo master, had never seen Citizen Kane. So we bought two big cans of Scottish ale and staked out the front row of the underground repertory theater. The cinema was literally underground, converted from an old subterranean experimental theater stage, so the front row was not too close to the screen. It was in fact an ideal position…
The idea of living one foot in the grave comes from the Zen masters, some of whom would carry a tiny coffin with them when they traveled, a reminder of their mortality, a token of the temporary nature of existence. The idea has become misused and distorted in the West, which tends culturally to make an enemy of death and view it as something…
“So that’s over,” he said. “I reckon we can go back to forgetting about it.” “Sometimes you just gotta move on,” she told him. That much was a simple truth. Lots of other people had moved on. Other would. But for some reason it was not for him. “I can’t forget.” “You won’t forget,” she argued. “That’s just your way. It always has been.”…
A foul cloud of yellow-green smoke moved slowly down the alley. Dogs ran from it, howling and barking as if chased by demons. Children wailed as it passed, their eyes stinging and their skin blistering. Those fast enough to shutter their windows were spared the worst of it. But cracked wooden shutters with open seams did not provide complete protection, so nearly everyone in…
The door was locked, the key tossed over the wall and into the night. His brother and the rescued hostages were safe on the other side, headed for the waiting boats and their escape. Tetsuo turned and faced the dozen warriors amassed before him. Some of them stood with their jaws slack, amazed at the sacrifice of this lone samurai. Two of the swordsmen…
After the New Year we sailed our sandbikes along down the gulf where we hung around the landfill plinking rats with pellet rifles. The rats are the size of kittens so they make good targets. We found this place at the end of the world where old surfers end up after one wave too many and every scruffy sailor with a boat claims…
Skipper Jonas Grumby finds this old tiki idol and believes he’s under the “curse of Kona.” Only the powerful witch-doctor Watubi can save him. Skipper is rendered nearly mad by his fear of the curse, his senses so distorted that he does not recognize Gilligan dressed up as Watubi. Nor does he realize the exorcism Gilligan performs is sheer nonsense. But then caucasian sea captains…
Lately I’ve been watching a lot of John Cassavetes movies and staying up late with gypsy minstrels composing musical space opera set on the Jovian moons of Io and Europa. Fire and ice are prominent themes. When the musicians get hungry we make soup from empty cans and then mourn the death of irony. A drummer named Ivan dances on the table while a…