ON CHOOSING THE SOUND OF SILENCE Conrad Aiken wrote a classic short story called “Silent Snow, Secret Snow” which chronicles a 12-year-old boy’s decent into stillness and isolation. The story begins as the child, lying in his bed, notices the postman’s footsteps seem m

HOW TAXING The line “I have measured out my life in coffee spoons,” keeps stirring in my head today (T.S. Eliot, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”). The image speaks to an existence of no importance… an existence that is trivial. Perhaps Eliot could have chosen a

WE DON’T FEED PEOPLE TO THE LIONS ANYMORE… One of my favorite authors is Anton Chekhov. I love his short stories and all his plays. He thought of the latter as comedies even though most of his characters are miserable, self deluded, and even suicidal. What made them comedies in hi