Category Archives: Issues

I. A year ago, almost to the day, my friend Enrique de Hériz—novelist, translator, clarinet player, amateur magician, knowledgeable sailor, and marathon runner—was diagnosed with lung cancer. He had been my only acquaintance when I arrived in Barcelona in October . . .

Materials for making a death mask: one handful alginate sufficient tap water plaster bandages half a bedsheet, torn one plastic garbage bag, torn a good pound of beeswax Tools: one large bowl, a long-handled spoon, a single-burner stove, a saucepan,  . . .

Before I discovered poetry—whimsically at thirteen, seriously at fifteen—I entertained several fantastic enthusiasms. As a boy, aged five to ten, I planned to be an astronaut. That dream faded when I learned—drat!—that wearing glasses disqualified me for the military pilot . . .

Herpatologist. In 1976 I was ten years old and about as ugly as a wet stoat, and by no little coincidence I spent a certain about of time by myself. In the summers, while the other boys were out on . . .

1. Apartment blocks built in the 1980s have left strange blank spaces in East German cities, particularly Berlin. There are many unsightly gaps from one house to the next, especially between Wilhelminian and communist buildings. These gaps, which I call . . .