Occasionally I read a biographical note about someone (usually a celebrity or writer) who is wedded to one specific place–a homestead, a landscape, a state or a country–has found complete happiness there and has vowed never to leave.
I envy them.
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As I write this, we have just finished watching our friend Timothy Greenfield-Sanders’ excellent documentary about aging models: "About Face." Tim was the director of XXX, a documentary about porn stars that Whitley appeared in.
I grew up with these ladies, thumbing through the pages of fashion magazines, while wondering if I would ever look anything like them or be able to own the stunning clothes they were photographed wearing.
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When I look at the list of seemingly senseless massacres that have occurred in the US over the last few decades, I notice that a good number of them have occurred in the West, especially in one state: Texas.
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I’ve been hobbling around in what I call "das boot" after a recent operation to correct my "Greek foot."
If you’ve ever seen images of Greek statues (or the real thing), your eyes start at the head, then travel down to those fig leaves supplied by the Vatican, then further down to the feet, where you notice that, for some reason, there is always a gap between the big toe and the rest of the toes on the statue’s foot.
I was looking in the full-length mirror on my closet door a few months ago, when I suddenly exclaimed, "I have a Greek foot!" Sure enough, there was a gap between the big toe on my right foot and the rest of the toes.
It wasn’t painful–just weird.
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