Riding back on the Staten Island Ferry, late at night, from a wedding, we see the Towers of Light coming up from lower Manhattan… and it’s a lovely sight, in its own eerie ghostly way, and makes us feel suitably somber and remembrance-y…

… but as the boat approaches, we start to notice little flecks of light, moving through the beams. Paper, I think, but the closer we get the more strangely they move, until we realize they must be alive, intelligent, birds, probably.

And there’s something very disturbing about it, watching hundreds of tiny white blips fly and circle and collide and move and rise through the air, almost like we’re watching souls, ascending or descending or staying put to keep an eye on us.

(Incidentally, when we got off the ferry we wanted to get a closer look, so we walked to the source… turns out it’s not at Ground Zero at all, but on top of a parking deck four blocks away!)

As a thriller, way above average. Fun, smart, engaging, surprising, even moving. As a documentary about Timothy Olyphant’s torso and adorable stubble, it’s bloody brilliant.

You have proof that Babe Ruth was Black.

And a bunch of vicious goons, possibly hired by the Yankees, are hunting you down and trying to kill you before you can make this information public.

And it’s 1948, so you can’t just post this proof to your blog or Facebook page. And you’re a sex worker, so no one takes you seriously. And you were a little bit in love with Babe, who has been dead for less than a week.

That’s the premise in my new story, “Black Babe,” which will be published in the new issue of Slice magazine. Back when they sent me my acceptance notice, I blogged about it - this story had been rejected by 65 literary journals! It’s also one of the ones I’m proudest of, which is probably why I had the fortitude to keep on sending it out so many times.

The release event is September 30th, in Manhattan. Come hear me attempt to condense this big story into five glorious minutes!

The Center for Fiction

17 East 47th St. in NYC

4/5/6/7/S train to 42nd Street

Looking south from an I-87 and Metro-North railroad overpass, Bronx NY. Photo by me.

Killing time in Barnes & Noble, looking halfheartedly through New Fiction, glancing up suddenly, seeing the cover, thinking My God, feeling my pulse thicken like when you see a friend you weren’t expecting to see, realizing what it is, chuckling, suddenly startlingly happy: because it’s Lee’s book. And it’s out in the world.

Gleefully stupid, in an Evil-Dead kinda way… but also just stupid. Talking goat’s the high point, and also the “All right… I’m done” moment.

I love True Blood, God help me, I do. But the latest episode did something that I’ve gotten really sick of: Sookie getting mad at Bill because he’s being dishonest or he’s up to something and won’t tell her what it is.

For real, y’all? AGAIN? I’m sure someone out there has already done the breakdown on how many times this has happened, and it’s gotta be a huge number.

I get it - they’re so different, it creates so many problems for them, they’re from different worlds and there are inevitable clashes. But a smart show will find new and exciting ways for their differences to create problems! Not the TEN THOUSANDTH TIME that Bill’s lying to protect Sookie, and she gets mad. What about - I dunno - him getting mad at her? Hello? Or what about their tensions/differences being PRODUCTIVE, INTERESTING, leading them on exciting adventures where for once they’re on the same page?

The American version of The Office did a great job of managing the relationship tension between Jim and Pam. The gestures were so little - a lingering look that only the camera caught, a friendly conversation turned uncomfortable because of everything that’s not being said. The on-again/off-again, will they/won’t they dynamic was really underplayed, and it worked.

And now that they’ve gotten together, and the audience is clearly on board with them, the show knows better than to constantly jeopardize the situation by making one get mad at the other. The one real time it’s happened since they finally got together… I was in agony throughout the entire episode! Because I care about these people! And the show respects them and me enough to not keep jerking me around (aside: it was really brilliantly done - Jim talked to Pam’s dad to try to get him back with Pam’s mom, and instead Pam’s dad filed for divorce, and Pam was really angry and wondered “what did he say to him? And how long until he says it to me?” (GREAT WRITING) and in the end Pam finds out that WHAT HAD HAPPENED WAS when Jim told Pam’s dad how much he loved Pam, Pam’s dad realized he had never felt that way about Pam’s mom, and that their relationship - unlike Jim and Pam’s - was based on a lot of things besides love… like fear, like loneliness, like the kids).

At this point I don’t even care about whether Sookie and Bill’s relationship works, because I’ve totally checked out on it. Which is a shame. Because it should be the bedrock of the show. Instead it annoys me - mostly - and most of the time when one of them comes on screen I think… GOD… when will we be getting back to LAFAYETTE? OR RUSSELL? OR ERIC? OR JESSICA? OR ARLENE? OR PAM?