Traffic School

This Saturday moves slowly by,A wriggling flyEntrapped within a spider’s web.A girl, just wedLast month, got caught while going pastA cop too fast,Her husband hanging off the hood.It’s understoodWe can’t enjoy the full details,Because we’ll failThe test if our instructor can’tExploit his chanceTo bore us with recondite stats.I’d love to chatA while with that healthy […]

Mama’s Boy

The slightest gasp had brought him to her bedWith tissues, pills, health regimens prescribedAd nauseam.  Still, she mimicked life, imbibedHis youthful fuel while staying “almost dead.”Adults had questioned why he’d never wed,This tweedy neuter closely moored besideHis ever-ailing mom – he could have thrived,But chose to be a mama’s boy instead. His image comes back […]

Saturday: Café Ennui

Another latte doesn’t kill the thirstResiding in their breasts. No pastry creamsToday? Biscotti only, so it seems,A taste defining boredom at its worst.The afternoon unfolds like those rehearsedIn countless cafés petits where people dreamBeyond a clean, well-lighted place, but leanInstead toward making life a restless curse. And elsewhere, women firing shattered criesFor voiceless children maimed by […]

Two Histories of Goth

In 2023, two major histories of goth hit shelves.  Both contain considerations mainly about music, but they also include literature, art, and political history, since goth as we know it today feeds from many inspirations, finally becoming a fully realized movement and aesthetic celebrating macabre sensibilities.  One author co-founded a band that provided immense influence […]

Planet Taco: A Global History of Mexican Food by Jeffrey M. Pilcher

Professor of History and Food Studies at the University of Toronto-Scarborough, Jeffrey M. Pilcher explores the taco and the overall history of Mexican cuisine, a much more complicated topic than casual readers might expect, with his Taco Planet: A Global History of Mexican Food.  Conquest, globalization, appropriation, and industrialization have all played roles over centuries […]

Taco Bravo: A Campbell Institution

Certain institutions in Campbell, California, have lasted many decades, although ownership has changed hands.  Jerry’s Barber Shop still occupies the same strip mall suite where my dad took me for haircuts. Jerry has retired, but the shop remains active.  Freddie’s Liquor has moved, but only across the street.  Most impressive, however, is Taco Bravo, in […]

Nghi Vo’s Siren Queen

A certain figurative language about Hollywood has been circulating through human discourse since cinema first entered the world. “Hollywood magic,” for instance, refers to special effects or related techniques employed to illustrate desires and fears across the “silver screen.” This fantastical imagery occludes the malevolence behind the curtain, the industry itself, which receives metaphorical treatment […]

Getting to Know the First Television Horror Host: Four Books About Vampira

Born in Gloucester, Massachusetts, Maila Elizabeth Syrjäniemi spent her youth in Astoria, Oregon, working for fish canneries.  After high school, she developed grander ambitions and headed to New York and Los Angeles, where she acted, danced, and flirted with greatness.  Finally, in 1954, now known as Maila Nurmi, she entered pop culture notoriety, initiating a […]