Sitting in the wicker rocking chair with her interrupted work in her lap, Amaranta watched Aureliano José, his chin covered with foam, stropping his razor to give himself his first shave. His blackheads bled and he cut his upper lip as he tried to s...
Raz was one of those vanguard human beings of indeterminate ethnicity, the magnificent mutts that I hope we are all destined to become given another millennium of intermixing. His skin was a rich pecan color from his dad, who was part African America...
Los Angeles is a town where status is all and status is only given to success. Dukes and millionaires and playboys by the dozen may arrive and be glad-handed for a time, but they are unwise if they choose to live there because the town is, perhaps ev...
We are all familiar with intellectuals who speak only on behalf of their country, class, religion, 'race,' 'gender,' or 'sexual orientation,' and who shape their opinions according to what they take to be the interest of their affinity of birth or pr...
He expected pages and pages of bright pictures of pancakes of every variety shown in plain stacks, or built into castles or bridges or igloos, or shaped like airplanes or rowboats or fire engines. And pitchers of syrup to choose from -- partridge ber...
And then came the three-toed sloth. Stupid sloth. It was a crazy-looking beastie, all arms and bristling grey fur; its body was a blob, the kind of shape a six-year-old would draw for a pig, and its face was flattened like a racoon that had run full ...
Your mother, my mother, and mother of pearl walk into a bar, and the bartender says, “Hello, dad, you look more like whiskey than I remember. Have you been tanning?” To which all three mothers respond, “The French Revolution was the best thing ...
My hands are flowing like sunlight. The shapes and colors are astounding. I don't understand these images that are empowering me. My brush touches the canvas like photons to the earth, and a new world develops, free from my control, yet intrinsically...
When the waiter brought the cheese-board, there was a large carrot carved in the shape of a mermaid sitting between the Dolcelatte and the Pecorino. Teo could have sworn that the carrot-mermaid flexed her tail and plunged her little hand inside a sme...
Sinuhe, my friend, we have been born into strange times. Everything is melting – changing its shape – like clay on a potter’s wheel. Dress is changing, words, customs are changing, and people no longer believe in the gods – though they may fe...
One thing that creates difference between pilgrims of life as they journey along the various paths of life is the head. It makes some fall, others rest and some pursue to the farther. The reason for the difference is not the size, shape, hair color o...
How often, you wonder, has the direction of your life been shaped by such misunderstandings? How many opportunities have you been denied--or, for that matter, awarded--because someone failed to see you properly? How many friends have you lost, how ma...
They rode through the quiet streets. The rain had stopped and an early morning mist fell around them under the streetlights. Victor remembered that his ancestors had believed this was a magical time when the gods walked the earth, Götterdämmerung, ...
You’ll get over it…” It’s the clichés that cause the trouble. To lose someone you love is to alter your life for ever. You don’t get over it because ‘it” is the person you loved. The pain stops, there are new people, but the gap never ...
A rural Venus, Selah rises from the gold foliage of the Sixhiboux River, sweeps petals of water from her skin. At once, clouds begin to sob for such beauty. Clothing drops like leaves. "No one makes poetry,my Mme. Butterfly, my Carmen, in Whylah,” ...
He told himself a story. Not at first. At first, there wasn’t time for thoughts that came in the shape of words. His head was blessedly empty of stories then. War was coming. It was upon him. Arin had been born in the year of the god of death, and ...
No matter how great you ‘think’ you are or how successful you've become. Never forget those who have lifted you up. Never forget life's experiences, both good and bad which have shaped you as a person. You've had help climbing the rungs of life's...
Problems are providence in disguise. All things good and bad, problematic and praise worthy are providential-God conceived, sustaining and guiding. With the right perspective, patience, hard work and hindsight, we can push through, beyond our pain, t...
At times it may seem as though you and your past are one. Sometimes we fail to differentiate between what has happened to us and who we are today. If you have a hard time getting beyond that damaging mind-set let me encourage you right now. You are n...
What is it that dies? A log of wood dies to become a few planks. The planks die to become a chair. The chair dies to become a piece of firewood, and the firewood dies to become ash. You give different names to the different shapes the wood takes, but...
Jefferson feared that Hamilton had plans radically at odds with the Constitution. As he saw it, Hamilton wanted to warp the federal government out of constitutional shape, converting it into a copy of the British government, built on debt, corruption...
