Miller Time

UNITED STATES—Comic strips were a window onto the world for Gilbert. They provided all his major news and gave him the veneer of being a well-informed person, aware of the latest brouhaha, literate in pop culture because artists like Sean Hillenbrand loaded their strips with such stuff as well as steadily mined a rich vein of politically incorrectness and...

UNITED STATES—I tried to prepare myself in the plane for the time change in order to hit the ground walking, if not running. I ate lightly and drowsed as we flew over the "pond" I wonder what wag in what century came up with that nomenclature for the Atlantic Ocean? I kept rehearsing the actions I needed to take...

UNITED STATES—John Steinbeck was no fool, but he did write one foolish thing in "Travels with Charley." The novelist of the American Road, born in Salinas, set forth the true measure of our country being healed from all its racial strife. We would know we had overcome and transcended when a person could conduct a conversation with somebody on...

UNITED STATES—There was a manly surrender in heading back on that freeway from the Westside. The phantom set of keys that would let Irma into her new quarters might be on the bed stand where she'd housesat near downtown. They might not. My job was to flush thoughts of defeat out of my head and drive. We got through the...

UNITED STATES—No sooner had the Fiji fungus been retarded than a new plant threat emerged. It was as if creation itself in this bounteous hemisphere along the banana axis could not afford to sit still. It infected the earth, it started with the roots and then went up the elephant stem. All the canopy of elephant ear leaves above...

UNITED STATES—One can be deceptively in awe of other nationalities when one belongs to the ink trade. They seem to have established more reliable means for distinguished writers to be distinguished. In Latin America one can become a diplomat (Octavio Paz and Pablo Neruda). In England, for instance, quite a few have gotten into intelligence, such as Ian Fleming,...

UNITED STATES—"I can't sleep," says the mom. "Is there something you can do for me? You haven't done anything for my leg." "Which leg?" says the son. "Oh, I don't know." "I haven't done anything for your leg? I only put a pillow under it. I only took a pillow out from under it. I rolled up a towel. I made you...

UNITED STATES—Wednesday turned out to be a day of surprises. The focus was for Colombian filmmaker, Juan David, to submit his recently completed movie to film festivals. It took us to an unlikely, un-Spanish setting: the Grove of Madrid. It is a huge hit with the busloads of Asian tourists. They love shopping at the homogenized same classy stores...

UNITED STATES—I slipped back into the empty theater of the mind where nobody was living. Some pigeons cooed and rustled in the rafters. There were cold logs from a campfire charred around the edges of the proscenium arch, where the gilded rays shone in sepia darkness. The hammer was back in my callused hand again. How did that happen?...

UNITED STATES—The months went by. The days got shorter and colder. There Robbie sat alongside Rolf, the giant black schnauzer, at the outdoor patio table threatened by cold and icy rain. Robbie was trembling under his cardigan sweater. The warm and humid breath from the good old dog's muzzle warmed the stiff joints in his fingers. It was terrifically...