Around Here

a cloud's limp shadow skates over sibilant sand as swift as a thought blue motorcycle in the shade of a cycad chrome noisily cools wealthy shadows shield the languid linen lunches in courtyard cafes skittish leaves tremble dancing on messy bed sheets: errant gray inklings lagging on the rail the grackle's darkling double like a second guess

A number of Florida coastal cities, east and west, are laced with canals. Here’s a story I wrote for a metropolitan daily a few years ago about the danger of driving into one, and what is likely to happen if you do. The story focuses on the city of Cape Coral, just to the north of Naples, where canals are ubiquitous to the city’s structure and way of life. Of all his daring stunts, none mesmerized crowds more than magician Harry Houdini's legendary escapes from confinement in objects and vessels submerged underwater. And for good reason. The stunts evoked enough primal fears to grimly fascinate millions. "I won't drive over a bridge with my windows up," said Naples resident Jane Pringle, referring to the dread that haunts her: accidentally driving her car into a body of water. Her fears are not altogether unfounded. Whether from a bridge, a pier, or washed out road, whether into a canal, a rain-filled drainage ditch, or backyard pool, the chances of escaping from a su...

This photograph was my first sale. It was purchased not by a newspaper, but by an architect. Doug was a friend who sometimes hung out down at the loft all those years ago. I would have given it to him, but he insisted on buying it from me. So I asked for fifty dollars, quite a sum in those days and circumstances. We were all at the start of our careers back then, scarcely past our teens; Doug was on the fastest track of any of us, and had already acquired an aura of assurance and inevitability. I Googled him today, wondering if there'd be a trace, and a bunch of articles about him in the New York Times came up. He wanted the photograph, an 8 x 10 print, as soon as he saw it. "That's amazing," he said. "It looks like you set it up." It did have that look, once he pointed it out, although it was just a street shot. But Doug had caught on to its graphical cache'. And he already had the means to act on his convictions. I think Doug seeded my career. Soon the...

Can I ever have too many? I throw them around with decadent abandon. I celebrate towels! They're functional. They're a luxury. They can be worn. They thrive on contact with humanity. They're the confidantes of our intimacies. Our first aid. Our companions at the beach. They live to serve. Life before terrycloth must have been dismal; I hesitate to call it civilization. I like thick fluffy white ones, their suggestion of virgin snow, of freshly minted clouds, only excites my profligacy. Don't give me designer towels in cobalt and persimmon and toast. Beige brings me down. Avacado makes me angry. I want my pure, highly refined white Egyptian cotton towel drug. And lots of it.