By Charles Simic From Writers at the Movies 2000 Only recently, with their issue on videotape, have all the films of Buster Keaton become widely available. It’s likely one may have seen The General (1926) in some college course, or caught a couple of shorts at some...
By Charles Simic Harvard Review Fall 2003 In one of Berenice Abbott’s photographs of the Lower East Side, I recall a store sign advertising Silk Underwear. Underneath, there was the additional information about “reasonable prices for peddlers.” How interesting, I...
By Alex Belth Bronx Banter April 7, 2010 I met Pete Dexter last fall when he was in New York promoting his seventh novel, Spooner. Dexter was a wonderful newspaper columnist and is now one of our greatest novelists. First thing I noticed about him was that he was...
By Pete Dexter From Spooner 2009 Later that year Spooner began his career in organized baseball. The coach of the baseball team was Evelyn Tinker, who in addition to being held almost blameless in the Lemonkatz boy’s injury was now rumored to be collecting sixty bucks...
By Rich Cohen From The Record Men 2005 Leonard Chess had just turned forty. He had two children and was living on the South Shore of Chicago. Each new station in his life would be marked by a new house, a new office. It’s one of the places where the Jewish character...
By Allison Glock GQ 2000 Even though Sault Sainte Marie, Michigan, borders majestic Lake Superior, the Kewadin Casino and Hotel slumps pitiably just off Shunk Road on an arid lot boxed by an RV park, a rehab center, a Head Start facility and a convenience store....
