Peter Murmann

In a nanosecond David lost his thumb, the one his mother painted with pine pitch when he was four to keep him from forever sucking it. Unable to distinguish human flesh the McCormick silo filler sliced it off— nail, bone, knuckle— and blew it skyward an ounce of humanity in a thousand tons of silage. Taken by surprise David suppressed the truth. Before the rush of blood he held [Read More]

Today is Roseanne Barr’s birthday. Courtesy of the Writer’s Almanac, here are some of her good lines. Because [Roseanne] and her husband were short on money, she took a job outside the house, as a cocktail waitress. She began trying out her jokes, largely about the incompetence of the male species, and the people frequenting her [Read More]

  This is one of the best columns Frank Rich (NY Times) has written in a long time. I am not sure, however, if he does not exaggerate the decline of the media’s critical abilities. At the turn of the 20th century, America’s journalist were clearly not anywhere close to the role model that Rich [Read More]

considered one of the most beautiful ones ever written. I discovered this listening to the daily podcast of the Writer’s Alamac.  Here are the written words: My dearest Girl, This moment I have set myself to copy some verses out fair. I cannot proceed with any degree of content. I must write you a line or [Read More]

Golden for my parent’s fiftieth anniversary In the old photographs, it is always autumn. Colors fade to the sepia of remembered thought: my mother in a flapper dress, my father proud beside the Model A. They glow in the light of dreams that I can never know. What did they think of that autumn they climbed into the photograph of bride & groom? That [Read More]