You are currently viewing the stories for “November 2005.”
Off Track Betting could be a Greyhound Bus Station at 4 am or a bar where I learned to play spoons. It could be a retiree’s living room. One, someone calls him Bobby, who possesses comfortable gems on his finger and windbreaker. I watch him scribble “faster” at the top of each race, not for the contenders but an incitement [...]
So we thought a movie, and he says “you pick one.” I look into it and suggest either that one about the Rwandan genocide or "Raging Bull" in a new print at the Ziegfeld. “Remember,” I ask him, “remember how at some point they started issuing tickets for actual seats at the Ziegfeld, with seat numbers? I wonder if they [...]
Photo by Ricky Powell In the midst of the most un-ironic activity in the world--sports--Marv Albert is a burst of jazzy, sardonic, droll Brooklynese. Marv is all about cadence and inflection; his initial notoriety was based on the pronunciation of a single word--"Yes!"--drawn out and shaped like a piece of taffy. For 24 years he has called play-by-play for the [...]
[The following was originally published in "Piece From Life's Crazy Quilt," a collection of personal essays about growing up in Detroit in the 1920's, 30s, and 40s by Marvin V. Arnett. The collection first appeared in 2000, as part of the University of Nebraska Press's "American Lives" series (Series Editor: Tobias Wolff), and the University of Nebraska Press has shown [...]
Wanting to see the new exhibits at Socrates Sculpture Park, I walked down Broadway from my Astoria apartment. I passed beneath the elevated subway station as an N or W train thundered through. Down past grungy supermarkets and massive discount stores, with their outdoor displays of toilet paper, sandals, fake Persian rugs, and baskets of brooms. The last time I [...]
They say she’s holed up like a squirrel, nuts to last the winter, glimpses of green bath- robe when she shuffles down the hill to her mailbox to collect more rejection. People start laying bets, perhaps she has a corpse hidden like, what’s her name, was it Emily? Maybe she’s taken a bad spell, some female kind of thing. No, [...]
I took my second grade special education class to my dentist as part of my career education unit. While they were learning about dentistry, I'd also get my teeth cleaned. It seemed too good to be true: taking care of my teeth on school time. I recruited two speech teachers to come along. They were tired of giving speech lessons [...]
We had arrived a little late to the Soapbox Car Derby, and the races were already in progress. Hot Saturday afternoon in Brooklyn, occasional wafts of East-River-in-July. First concern, identifying the car of our friend. (It was, without any bias, certainly the best-looking of the cars: a sleek wheeled coffin with a little cockpit for the driver, complete with roses [...]
I live and work in midtown Detroit in the area known as the "New Center." This area is in the midst of a new housing boom. Lofts and condominiums are springing up as fast as the land can be acquired. The area is recapturing the grandeur of the 60’s and 70’s, when it was the business hub of Detroit. The [...]
I hate high school. I hate the food and the bathroom doors don’t shut. I hate the flickering fluorescent lights and it’s always cold. Most of all, though, I hate the people who claim high school is the best time of your life. Since freshman year, I’ve been looking at colleges. Instead of going to volleyball practice or debate team [...]
My love life is typical in most respects. My relationships all have a beginning middle and end. With me it just happens that this all takes place in the span of a week. I don't like to waste time. Day 1: My last affair began on a dark and stormy night. It was a Wednesday and I had planned to [...]
Whenever I took my second grade special education class to the playground, they'd make a mad dash for the swings. Though, the winners would seldom swing. They would spin in circles by twisting the chains. I'd warn them about becoming dizzy, but dizziness gave them an excuse after their turn was over to stumble into each other and see how [...]
Before I met my husband my one true love was Brooklyn. I’d been living in Carroll Gardens for almost ten years and had watched it turn from a neighborhood I didn’t want to live in (un-cool) to a neighborhood I adored (pretty cool) to a neighborhood I sort of didn’t want to live in (so cool it was at risk [...]
