Jorge Luis Borges, August 24, 1899

The Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges was born on this date in 1899. Here is a poster I made for the occasion.–Mark

Mark Aldrich's avatarThe Gad About Town

Translation 2008 by Manolis Antoniou, (anagrammatically.com/2008/01/31/borges-and-i-borges-y-yo/) Photo montage 2014 by Mark Aldrich, The Gad About Town Translation 2008 by Manolis Antoniou, (anagrammatically.com/2008/01/31/borges-and-i-borges-y-yo/) Photo montage 2014 by Mark Aldrich, The Gad About Town

View original post

A Long Road

Every alcoholic in recovery has a collection of anecdotes that can be simultaneously heartbreaking, outrageous, and hilarious. Perhaps they are hilarious only to fellow alcoholics; perhaps they can not even be listened to by outsiders. For an outsider, most alcoholic anecdotes may as well conclude with the same dark punchline, an interchangeable rubber-stamped ending: “And then I got away with it again.” Or, “I didn’t die that time, either.” And then comes the next hair-raising—or eyebrow-raising—tale.

Every alcoholic in recovery is living a story with a weird ending, if they remain in recovery. It is that two-word pair there, “in recovery,” that provides the surprise, the weirdness, a period of life as surprising to behold as some of the antics, the many bizarre actions and activities and inactions and inactivities that were surprising for outsiders to watch unfold in the previous life.
Read More

A Meal Fit for a …

I don’t know how science works.

To the best of my knowledge, electricity can be explained thus: Step 1, flowing water or wind turns a turbine which looks like a giant screw, and Step 2, I walk through my front door, pick up a black rectangle, punch a red button, and “Dah dahdah, dah dahdah,” Sportscenter is on. (I wrote technical documents—white papers—for electrical engineers for five years and instruction manuals that were used in home construction around the nation. You’re welcome. Expertise takes different forms, and mine is in forming sentences. The engineers supplied all the science-y numbers that make buildings happen.)

Cooking is among my top several favorite activities to pursue for when cooking is something to be done. I reminded my girlfriend of this recently:
Read More