The parking lot that spreads from the Bel-Aire Motel is covered in weeds. The floor tiles are cracked as well, but the staff hired guys to work on it. Franklin — middle-aged, white, and with a cracked smile and light-brown unibrow — stands out front of his first floor apartment, along with his neighbor Brady and Grace, Brady’s … Continue reading →

Trying to draw someone with words is depraved. The proof is that if you know someone too well, you can’t profile them. I could profile my friend Garrett, but I’d never be wholly satisfied. No matter what I say, I’d know there’s more. Always more. I got the chance to talk to my favorite living profiler, … Continue reading →

“We have really everything in common with America nowadays, except, of course, language.” –Oscar Wilde, printed under the heading “Americanisms” in BBC’s Style Guide. Saw an interesting thing in The Guardian a couple of weeks ago. In a story about the political/ethnic massacres going on in South Sudan, the British news guys included the following sentences: “The lord is … Continue reading →

I’m gonna get in on this journalism circle jerk and tell you why I’m alright with all the bullshit. One of the things I’ve been most impressed with this year was my conversation with good-girl journalism gangster Allison Pohle. On my back porch, everyone minus her smoking cigarettes, I small-talked her up: “How was your … Continue reading →

Poitiers <Pwah-[tee-yay]/diphthong>  is only a three hour trip from Paris, but it feels like seven hours because that’s how much time has passed, and it’s mostly this strange Romanian guy’s fault driving the truck. I’ve never met him before, and a half hour into the ride he won’t look at me — whenever he talks … Continue reading →