My first movie was “Song of the South”. I saw it at Radio City Music Hall with my grandparents. I was four. I loved it. “Zippedee-doo-dah, zippedee-aaaa. My oh my what a wonderful day” became my favorite song for a long time.

My second movie was “The Wizard of Oz”. I saw it at a big theatre in Brooklyn with my best friend Bonnie and her older cousin Barbara. Bonnie and I were five. From the moment those monkeys flew out I hit the floor and stayed there. Everyone tried to coax me out, and I would peek my head up every once in a while and take a look. But still I really hated it. I don’t like being scared. Call me crazy. Never cottoned too much to Judy Garland or “Over the Rainbow” until a few years ago when a very large Hawaiian man sang it while playing the ukulele in the soundtrack of a movie that wasn’t “The Wizard of Oz.”. THAT I liked. Call me crazy.

I also remember “Bambi” from...

The Encyclopedia Britannica was another member of our family. It loomed over us, like an old bubby. It lurked, hulking and dark in its own custom-made bookcase, which also contained a slot to hold the optional World Atlas, which we also had. AND, we subscribed to the annual updates for at least 10 years. Those were piled on top of the bookcase. A big presence in our house. Silent and gloomy. An Eeyore-type entity. An alien being.
Our own personal E.T.

I used to love looking things up and I loved learning whatever I could. But for most of the years we had it, I only understood a bit of what was written about each subject. I specifically remember reading about the Apian Way in Rome, and the pine trees of Rome (which also happens to be the name of a beautiful piece of music by Respighi). But the history that was woven into the story of these subjects was much too complex for me at ages...

No one uses corn holders anymore.
Those little plastic or ceramic, possibly wood or silver plate (sterling would conduct the heat) pokey things, usually two-pronged, that one would stick into each end of an ear of corn. By holding onto the holders, one would avoid being burned by hot corn-on-the-cob. Particularly good for protecting the tender fingers of children – although the holders did have a way of slipping out of the corn, plopping onto the plate, lap or floor, and causing feelings of failure in children and ire in adults. When use of corn holders was successful, one could also easily roll the ear of corn over a stick of butter without getting grease on one’s fingers.

Another method of buttering one’s corn is to spread the butter on a piece of bread, then hold on to an unbuttered part of the piece of bread and move the buttered part of the bread along the length of the ear of...

More shorts

In order to benefit in any way by reading my writings, each person would have to get inside my head. I think they don’t realize that they should hope there is no room.

We must steel ourselves against the inevitable onslaught of desire.

If you don’t believe in astrology, does that mean that you don’t have a sign?
If you don’t believe in Hell, does that mean that you’re not going there?
Same for Heaven.
(Note the capital “H’s”. Perhaps that means that I do believe. Or am afraid to be caught not believing, which would mean that I do believe in crime and punishment, an almighty, or Miss Kramer’s Rules of Capitalization.)

The ever-probing angst: like a heat seeking missile, it will find you.

Is being a tender and imaginative lover an indicator of good character? Intelligence? Wit? Or is it a skill that can be developed and cultivated, like playing the piano, or programming a...

Written on February 1st, 2013, this is the 100th birthday of Grand Central Station. That means that when my mother, Freda Berlowitz Young, was born, Grand Central was 9 years old. That means that on the day this is being written, Freda would be 91. That seems impossible.

Mother grew up in the Bronx. She graduated from Theodore Roosevelt High School at the age of 16, a member of Mensa, and had to go to work. She took the subway from the Bronx to Grand Central Station every day. It took a long time. She hated it. She hated the train and the dirty, dreary station. In 1938, Grand Central looked exactly like it looks in cinema noir films: black and white and poorly lit and crowded chin to shoulder as far as you could see during rush hours, nearly everyone wearing a hat. Bumping.

She always said that she would “never step foot inside Grand Central Station again as long as I live.” It...

What do these three statements have in common?

1. You can’t argue with California’s humidity-free weather, Italian food,
   the Beatles and Matisse.
2. You can have absolutely everything in your life, just not all at once.
3. Time is all at once. (Which seems to contradict 2. Discuss.)

What they have in common is that my friends are sick of hearing me say these things. And yet those same people can watch “The Godfather” trilogy every single year over New Year’s weekend on AMC and then go around for weeks saying “Leave the gun. Take the cannolis.” and never tire of hearing themselves say that. Go figure.

White is my favorite color.
I also like yellow, which is said to be the favorite color of geniuses
and lunatics.
If there is a line between those two, it’s very fine.

Both of my parents were born in New York City.
For reasons beyond my control, I was born in Tucson, Arizona.
For the...

My favorite restaurant as a child was Horn & Hardart’s Automat. They were big cafeterias, black and white décor; checkered tile floors. On my visits to them, my grandparents often took me to the Automat for lunch, an alternative to Schrafft’s or to Grandpa’s club at 200 Fifth Avenue.

There were two ways to eat in the Automat: you could go to the walls where there were little glass windows with food behind the glass. There were slots for coins in the brass frames that held the glass in each window. Also in the frames were descriptions of the food inside. You put your coins into the slots, opened the window, and removed your choice, which was usually on an off white heavy china plate with two concentric burgundy rules on it.
The food was generally placed on a paper doily. You could get all kinds of sandwiches, whole fruits like apples, a roll and butter, AND desserts. This was always a...

It fits snugly and tidily into a plastic sandwich bag, with a slider closure.
A 3” x 5” photo, only slightly faded, in a deep cordovan colored simple wooden frame. Black would have been ominous. All wrong, as this is a picture of pure easy early light heavenly and laser intense feeling between two young beautiful people.
It is, of course, us.
As we were.

Everyone who sees the picture gets the same expression on their face: relaxation. Peaceful calm. As though looking at that image makes everything right with the world.

That’s what I had thought, too.
On second thought, maybe a black frame would tell a fuller story, a coda to that gentle graceful dance that we did in those years, the one that made people stop in their tracks and say things to me like, “You look to be in love.” Everyone wanted to be near us. Why not? Perhaps we were contagious and they would catch some. I luxuriated in...

I may never find it. The reincarnation of the perfect chocolate cake of my childhood. It was made by “Mommy” Stillwell, the baby nurse who stayed with us when my sister and then brother were born. On that perfect day in May, I had gone off to school having been told that if Mommy Stillwell was there when I came home for lunch, it meant that my real Mommy had gone to the hospital to have The Baby.

I skipped home from school at lunchtime. Came down 8th street. Cut through the backyards, and there, sitting on the bench that wrapped around the big tree in our yard, was Mommy Stillwell! She was sitting there in her white nurse’s uniform and white shoes with a sweater on her shoulders, knitting. I skipped up to her. She told me that I had a new baby brother and his name was Michael and that Mommy would bring him home in a few days. I was thrilled! How wonderful! A boy! She took my 8- ½ year...

MY LIFE WRIT BRIEF, AND FREQUENTLY (in the guise of titles)

Everything’s right with the world
If you don’t ask for details

Ants Have Six Legs: Arachnids Have Eight
Is more better?

“I had a Hasselblad.”
Trust me: it’s a real conversation starter.

Sociopath/Schmociopath
You can’t help who you love

The fifth note is sol.
Observations on music, sun worship, my grandpa, who was a catch, and the essence of being paid to be perfect

Quality control for the universe
And other job titles
A memoir

Late bloomers, early shorts.
Stories of varying lengths and purposes

Tearsheets.
Pieces torn from the stories of my life.

Collage
Bits ripped from an ordinary life stuck together with dried up glitter glue.

Revelation knows not the rules of propriety

One tiny piece of baby blue satin.
Stories of letting go.

Act as if.
Truth will out

OK, I’m perfect.
Now will you love me?

Billows
& other...