Miller Time

UNITED STATES—Let’s tackle from today’s woke perspective what would be called diversity in it’s “A Mad Mad Mad Mad World.” In a way it’s a cynical look at humanity, a story of greed and temporary insanity. And you had these European screen writer’s, an Anglified American and his professional and personal partner (William and Tania Rose) extrapolating from their...

UNITED STATES—After the Delaney’s second tenure, the company gradually but steadily slid in till the year Richard Nixon ran for president, the new Nixon (thank you Bernard Lukasey, the public relations wiz manipulator extraordinaire) who said there were indeed some people he would not work for, including Hitler, whose people had sought to contract him, but Nixon he didn’t...

UNITED STATES—I am in the final stages of a major novel, my first, and both my bonds with teaching are eroding and emotional tensions are mounting. I am under great tension albeit, creative tension, which is very good, sort of like good cholesterol is good. But this makes me prone to uncharacteristic outbursts and sudden tenderness, at the most...

UNITED STATES—Scene: Smells. A dog would love this place and never leave. There are ripe smells and revolting smells. There are cooking food smells from the kitchen that emits salsa music when the swing door opens. There are smells of fresh nurses reporting to work. From wide ajar doors escapes the unmistakable, humbling effluvia of a bedpan being changed,...

UNITED STATES—Humblest apologies to the reader for our picaresque luncheons occupying the last column. You were left wondering about aporphobia, which lurks at the center of my Madrid experience. The digestion of we three travelers from America we was working away on croissant, milanesa and chicken wrap when we ventured toward the Central Park of Madrid, El Retiro. We didn't...

UNITED STATES—In a time like this, you get by on your vices. One of mine is ganja. I initially thought this was going to be a three-doobie pandemic, when we began in April. Now it is February and I have lost count. I was going to go Saturday night to pick up a gram or three from the smoke shop...

UNITED STATES—A blistering wind was coming through the glass and concrete towers. It rustled a flag at three-quarters mast. Just before reaching the lower echelons and stirred the hairs on Mary's natural fright wig, the breeze ran out of steam. The stifling stagnation the ruled the city like a wasted metaphor. Mary saw a way out. There it was before...

UNITED STATES—Allied Fruit wasn’t the only one pressing for intervention. Carneyism was at its peak, the Cold War was heating up, and conservatives in Congress and the Saurkraut administration were anxious to take on an apparent Red push in their own hemisphere. Many liberals, afraid of being labeled appeasers and soft, remained mum or joined in sounding the alarm....

UNITED STATES—Katy is the neighbor with the junky porch and lots of cats. Lotte was the 96-year-old German neighbor with incontinence and an aversion toward bathing that manifest near the end of a long rich life. The foul scent of Lotte’s dried urine and unbathed body was sharp, I might even say tangy. The smell reached out all the way...

UNITED STATES—"It seemed like you guys kept your marriage going, when everyone else's was falling apart. Like when Homer got the job in Chicago, he was on his way to the airport and then decided to turn back, and come home to you. That's a real love story." Sister Karen smiles. She holds a hand over the cup when the...