Riding in Airplanes #2: On With the Story (And Full of Hot Air)

Dear CF,
I had intended to do at least two Riding in Airplanes posts in this little series. The second installment was going to be about the intimate conversations we have on planes with total strangers. Some coincidences have, well, incided that plan. So I’ve lazily decided to organize this post according to coincidence, which the [...]

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Wedunlocking the Never-Ending Story

Dearest CF,
That’s an extraordinary passage. It hits home. I want to add, parenthetically, that I agree with your parallels to Alice Munro, and I’m surprised she hasn’t traversed that territory more than she has. She comes close, I think. But the type of wife that comes closest–dulled by habit and nearly (though not quite) unaware [...]

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Brief Interviews with Hideous Men

Dear CF,
I started the evening rereading “Brief Interviews” and felt convicted and abased, recognizing in myself too much of what the Depressed Person says. And you, dear friend, are the beleaguered Support System with whom I (i.e. the depressed person) try constantly to really truly literally “share,” to whom I reach out for a glimmer [...]

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Are we Ali Baba or the Thieves?

Dear CF,
Intimate terms with the object. This helps. Maybe this is what distinguishes the explorers of yore—Lewis and Clark, Columbus, Ponce de Leon et al.—from the new ones. They (we?) don’t really want to bring back potatoes and spices and the Hottentot Venus. Quite the contrary—it’s more about hoarding. This is a different impulse, a [...]

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