” I remember jumping off the front porch headfirst onto the corner of a brick. I remember being able to see nothing but gushing red blood. This is one of the first things I remember. And I have a scar to prove it. “ (~ Joe Brainard, I Remember, 1975)
” I remember swallowing my mother’s wedding ring, sucked it right off her finger, while I lay next to her when I was three or four. Then I was rushed to the doctor’s, who X-rayed me standing naked on some aluminum weighing plate in his office. It took several days, and no playing or running around, for the ring to see sunlight again.” (~ Amit’s memory)
I’ve returned to this WordPress wall after seven years, like a graffiti artist scouring public walls.
As many of you know, I ditched Substack, which was a terrific platform that helped me build a small readership and follow writers and columnists like Shalom Auslander, Bess Kalb, and Paul Krugman.
I am all for free speech and the First Amendment, and I have always thought of the ACLU defending Nazis at Skokie, Illinois, as the quintessential act of constitutional legal representation. What I couldn’t shake about Substack is that it profits from allowing hate-group accounts. I can’t do much. I can leave the compromises to others.
So here I am. Stepping into the shallow end of WordPress with a few essays from my first visit to Berlin in 2019.
I hope you’ll follow me. Free and without encumbrances.