Author. Educator. Musician.
Then an old man, a keeper of a bar, said, Speak to us of Beer. And he said: Would that you could live simply on the fruits of the earth and be sustained by wine. But since you were born to drink delicious craft beer made locally by brewmasters who harness the powers of grains …
Continue reading “Lost Beer Passage from Kahlil Gibran’s ‘The Prophet’”
Portland’s art calender is filled with poetry readings. From Port Veritas to Rhythmic Cypher, Portlandites can get their poetry fix a few nights a week. But what about us prose guys? Those of us who write and read in lines that wrap around the far edge of the page? You’re right, we have Word Portland. …
Continue reading “Literary Death Match Throws Down in Portland”
I handed in my essay on To the Lighthouse on Friday morning and spent the afternoon fretting over what I was going to wear that night. As I doubted every plaid shirt I owned, Emma knocked on my open door. “Hey,” she said, standing in the hallway. “Hi,” I said, holding two near identical flannel …
Continue reading “To the Lighthouse and Other Stories of the Heart (Part Three)”
I was drunk when I went to Emma’s room. Not real drunk, but drunk enough to think it was a good idea to talk about Virginia Woolf on a Friday night. “I have some ideas about my paper,” I said, sitting on the edge of her bed. She wore jeans and a black tank top. …
Continue reading “To the Lighthouse and Other Stories of the Heart (Part Two)”
Emma lived one floor below me. We were sophomores. Her blonde hair was the color of a wheat field in August. Her smile made you lean towards her when she talked. Brett was the one who told me she had a boyfriend. “She’s been with him since she was a freshman,” he said. “In high …
Continue reading “To the Lighthouse and Other Stories of the Heart (Part One)”
There’s no good way to end a highly acclaimed television series. The viewer’s expectations are insurmountable, and most likely contradictory. We want the characters to live forever and get what they want, but if a writer does this, we’ll complain that the end was cliche and boring. It’s the great human contradiction: we want to …
Continue reading “The Breaking Bad Finale: 7 Reasons Why It Worked”
On September 6, 1620, the Mayflower set sail for the new world. 102 Pilgrims left the civilized Western world for the unknown trials of the New World. Were they leaving for adventure? For the romantic notion of living in a world untouched by civilization? To help push forward Western ideals?Hell no. They were leaving because …
Continue reading “Understanding the Conundrum of Religion in America”
A meek, yet brilliant high school teacher discovers he has cancer, cooks meth to pay for chemo, becomes intoxicated by the power of being a drug lord, beats cancer, keeps cooking meth, becomes a sociopath. That’s a crude exposition of the transformation of Walter White’s character in AMC’s Breaking Bad over the course of five …
Continue reading “The Beautifully Drawn Deterioration of Breaking Bad’s Walter White”
Herman and his friend make the journey back to Herman’s camp a week after the first disturbance. During the seven hour trek of driving up 95, four-wheeling narrow logging roads, and hiking the final two miles, Herman and his friend speculate endlessly about what threw the boulder at their canoe. “A hermit,” Herman says. “A …
Continue reading “A Disturbance in Frenchville, Maine: Part II”
I don’t know how this story ends. Even Herman doesn’t yet know how it ends. But we’re all hoping for a big finale. A friend told me this story yesterday, and it’s me gripped in the way storytelling has entranced us since the first cavemen sat around a crackling fire and told tales of mysterious …
Continue reading “A Disturbance In Frenchville, Maine: Part I”
DAVE PATTERSON 