I’m rereading A Moveable Feast, Hemingway’s unfinished memoir about the Paris years that was completed by his son, Jack, and published posthumously in 1964. The writing is so easy going and effortless that it doesn’t seem like “literature” at all. The famous Hemingway style – short, simple, declarative sentences – is there, but the tone is relaxed, intimate, and conversational. It feels like he is sharing with the reader on a personal level – his favorite restaurants, the café where he writes, the one where he meets friends (they are different), the wine he drinks, the bookstore with the lending library, his apartment, walks along the river, skiing in the Voralborg, and family life. read more

Lately I’ve been thinking about “date nights.” No, not the creepy, contrived, sentimental, hearts and flowers kind but the nights when the two of you get out and do something interesting together. I started thinking about it when my son-in-law, Jon, told me his babysitter charges $13 an hour. At that rate, even movie night for two is close to a $100 proposition. I don’t need a babysitter but Jon and Heidi do. $13 an hour forces them to be creative in order to make it happen.

Our kids are all doing well, but they have to balance a lot of needs when they think about going out. They want to try new restaurants, see plays, catch a Sounders’ game, or go to a movie. As much as anything it’s about keeping things fresh and having some fun together. Marilynn and I like to hang out with the kids, but we have our own lives and we’re not always available. So how can they make it work? Whether there’s a babysitter in the equation or not going out has gotten to be expensive. read more

“We shudder to recall the times through which we have lived, the Recent Past, about which no one wants to think.” Tony Kushner – Homebody/Kabul

Tony Kushner’s 2001 play, Homebody/Kabul, is remarkable in many ways. It’s about Afghanistan but was written before 9/11. It’s a monologue delivered by a spinsterish woman, the Homebody, in her London flat (but could be anywhere) who is captivated by an out of date guidebook about Kabul. The Kushner line, about the Recent Past, was startlingly prescient given that he started writing the play in 1996, even before the US air strikes on Al Qaeda training camps. And though the play was first performed in December of 2001 after the Twin Towers attack, the playwright didn’t feel it was necessary to modify the text in order to make it more timely. read more

As a young Marine Corps student pilot I remember my instructor telling me, “Any fool can fly an airplane and I’m the living proof of that.” His self-deprecating point, of course, was that principles of flight are fairly simple and can be mastered with practice. I have no formal training in aircraft accident investigation, but with 30 years as a Marine Corps and Pan Am pilot here’s what I think happened with Asiana Airlines last week.

Last Saturday, on a clear day, Asiana Airlines Flight 214 crashed into the seawall at San Francisco International Airport with three pilots in the cockpit. read more

Things keep appearing on my plate; unexpected things that suck me in. Books are the prime offenders, because I’m always thinking about what to read next. The list is long but constantly in flux because “what’s next” keeps changing. New books scoot to the head of the line because of a review or a friend’s recommendation, and old friends in the bookcase jump out and demand rereading. Last week the new book was The Financial Lives of Poets by Jess Walter (more on that later), and earlier this spring a conversation with the novelist Alexander Maksik led me to reread three novels by James Salter. The list grows at both ends. The new one jumps the line and the old one gets tacked on to its tail. I’m usually reading two or three things at the same time – hardcover, Kindle, and paperback. It depends on where I am, where I’m going, and how much space I have. It’s exciting and frustrating at the same time, but I’m always ready to rearrange the list and move on to a new chapter – so to speak. read more