It sounded so cool, working in a recording studio. I had no experience at all, but things were different then, there were more jobs than people, and before I turned 21, I was second engineer in a production house that specialized in movie ads for radio. We’d produce the spots, then patch them through a tiny speaker hardwired onto the mixing board to hear what they’d sound like on a car radio. At night, my musician friends would use the studio to cut demo tapes.



Some of the people I… Continue

My favorite enamel baking dish belonged to my mother, sienna orange on the outside, cream on the inside, fluted on the edge like a piecrust. You’d be very wrong to think I use it in memory of a good cook. My mother literally died before she realized you were supposed to drain tuna; what she called her specialty was called, very aptly, tunafish goo—undrained oil-packed tuna, cream of mushroom soup, and canned peas, topped with canned Chinese noodles. Given this, it’s easy to…

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You’d pass her on the street without a second glance, a small round woman with a mop of short brown curls. She wears loose jeans and a flannel shirt—clothes you might wear to wash your car but would probably change to go to the market. She picks up her guitar, walks on stage, and starts to sing. Her butterscotch voice warms the room like a fire. An hour later, she finishes her third encore to a storm of applause and leaves the stage. The light switches off, and she…

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