“If any of [my stories] succeed in causing their readers to feel pleasantly uncomfortable when walking along a solitary road at nightfall, or sitting over a dying fire in the small hours, my purpose in writing them will have been … Continue reading Scary Stories to Tell in the Comments
The city I grew up in had been an economic powerhouse in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Paper mills and textile factories, powered by a hydroelectric dam and a big coal powerplant made the city thrive. We got schools, … Continue reading In Holyoke, Mass. Did Kubla Khan A Crap Amusement Park Decree
Today is my birthday. I’m 50. Continue reading The Day Thread Rusts Unburnish’d
I’m working on three things right now: a couple of short stories and my absurdly ambitious and almost certainly doomed novel. One of the shorts is very much in the MR James vein, the other a moodier piece that ties … Continue reading Horror and Me: Working in the Lab, Late One Night
No kid ever wanted to be the knight instead of the dragon. Humans have rules, and worse, consequences. When a human does something, they have to live with it. Maybe they go to jail. Maybe they feel guilty. Maybe they … Continue reading Horror and Me: Our Favorite Thing Is Monsters
My grandmother’s house was built in 1886. It was a row house, typical of the factory cities of the northeast, with three rooms (and a bathroom) on the ground floor, two bedrooms upstairs (where 7 people lived for a while … Continue reading A Pleasing Terror: Horror and Me, A Prologue
Hello, and welcome to the first of what will, hopefully, be a monthly feature. This will be a place for us to discuss architecture and design, to share news and opinions about the built environment, and to chart the path … Continue reading Frozen Music: A Monthly Thread about Architecture and Design
A bunch of folks, including Hegel Exercises (from whom I stole the title), have expressed interest in a weekly thread in which we can share the longreads that have kept us looking busy at work and prevented us from noticing … Continue reading What Has It Got In Its Pocketses?
A bunch of folks, including Hegel Exercises (from whom I stole the title), have expressed interest in a weekly thread in which we can share the longreads that have kept us looking busy at work and prevented us from noticing … Continue reading What Has It Got In Its Pocketses?
A bunch of folks, including Hegel Exercises (from whom I stole the title), have expressed interest in a weekly thread in which we can share the longreads that have kept us looking busy at work and prevented us from noticing … Continue reading What Has It Got In Its Pocketses?
With apologies and thanks to dear Monty. My old friend Ford was in Los Angeles on business, and as I had recently been rendered superfluous and essentially persona non grata at my job due entirely to the vehemence and churlishness … Continue reading The Game of Bear
Talk about that new funnybook movie here. Continue reading Spider-Man: Far From Home Spoiler Space
Hi everybody. It’s my birthday today. I’ve been working on a novel, and below, hidden with the spoiler tool, I have posted a few hundred words of a scene from that novel. It’s still very much a work in progress, … Continue reading The Beneficence and Munificence of the City Day Thread
There is a Chipotle fast casual restaurant that appears once a year on Larchmont Boulevard, almost at the intersection with W 1st Street. It will not appear if you enter Larchmont from the east, and it will not appear if … Continue reading The Chipotle on Larchmont Boulevard. No, Not That One, the One That’s Only There Once a Year.
Tell us about the things and places that are gone and are never coming back. Let’s keep people and pets out of it; I’m thinking more of stores you loved shopping at that closed, or restaurants you used to eat … Continue reading The Gone-Away World
Iannis Xenakis (1922-2001) was a Greek-French architect, composer, musical theorist, and engineer. His studies cut short by the Italian invasion of Greece in 1940, and the German invasion the following year, Xenakis joined the Greek People’s Liberation Army, the armed … Continue reading The Iannis Xenakis Day Thread
I threw this clumsy tribute to M.R. James together at work today. It’s not much of a Christmas present, but it’s home made. The Lawyer’s Ghost Story My college friend Pete, whose personal and professional successes had acted as … Continue reading A Ghost Story For Christmas
Hello folks! Welcome to the next installment of an occasional series about travel. Last time, we looked at the ideal one day visit to your town. Today, I want to ask you something a bit different. What is a completely … Continue reading The Travel Bug With Robert Maitland
All right, welcome to part two of our game of Exquisite Corpse. Last week, Romanes Eunt Domus got us off to a cracking start. We’ll put up each chapter as a new post, and aggregate them into a Google doc … Continue reading The Exquisite Corpse of Ava Cotto: Part 2
Last week, while joking about airport novels and first edition Iliads,Romanes Eunt Domus proposed that we should launch a game of Exquisite Corpse here on the Avocado. I thought it was a great idea, and, well, here we are. Exquisite … Continue reading The Exquisite Corpse of Ava Cotto
Here’s a fun little time waster. Let’s pretend that someone who’s never been there before is coming to visit your town for one day. What restaurants do they have to eat at? What museums do they have to visit? What … Continue reading The Travel Bug, with Robert Maitland
