I finished cleaning the library. Once again, the internet has come to feel like an albatross around the neck of this ancient mariner. The room measures about nineteen feet by twelve feet. The way the shelves are arranged, there are small rooms within the room, little private corners. This laptop also feels like an albatross. You’ve read Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner, I hope, and seen the accompanying artwork […]
The ancient mariner, with a laptop hung around his neck. . [ 1671 ]
Maybe you really can make something of yourself, as the time-worn advice goes, or threat, or promise, or admonition, depending on who says it or thinks it and under what circumstances, including you and your own. Maybe you really can become something or someone, a person worthy of respect, and on, and on, and on. I don’t know. It all seems rather strange to me. In a way, isn’t it […]
Written in 2015 and first published as a standalone blog, I refer affectionately to As Is as a “free-form essay” without quite knowing what the term means. The piece, divided into nine parts, or verses, is as much poem as it is essay, as much memoir as it is poem, and as much a celebration of life and language as all three. Its several references to Stephen, Mary, and my […]
William Michaelian 