memory | The Smart Set

Me and Bobby Miller

Angela Townsend — Thu, 14 Mar 2024 11:30:00 +0000

Everybody needs an oldies station. WKBJ was equal parts doo-wop and PG hijinks, faceless friend to commuters from Saugerties to Secaucus. It was the late ’90s, when Neil Diamond and the Beach Boys jostled for room in the nostalgia car. Bobby Miller was the manic maestro behind the wheel. Favored by parents and Earth Science […]

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True at First Flight

J.R. Patterson — Thu, 09 Nov 2023 12:30:00 +0000

The omission of airplanes in much artwork is understandable. It’s not a question of talent, but of choice and visibility. When used in art, the most visible kind of planes — those used for war and commercial purposes — signal the glorification of aviation’s base functions — to kill and to carry. There is no […]

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When the Satanists Moved In

Erica Zelinger — Mon, 06 Nov 2023 12:30:00 +0000

Writer Paul Crenshaw found himself trying to make sense of the fear that engulfed everything in his 1980s childhood in small-town Arkansas and the world around him. The Cold War. Stranger Danger. Satanic Panic. In his most recent book of essays Melt with Me: Coming of Age and Other ’80s Perils, published by The Ohio […]

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Swift Transformation

Brian Kantorek — Mon, 23 Oct 2023 11:30:00 +0000

I’ve been on the fringes of music and pop culture for many decades now, immersed in an underground hardcore punk scene that often derides popular music’s influence. That’s not to say that I’ve always ignored or dismissed what’s popular. There are plenty of popular performers and bands I’ve found magnetic and genuinely enjoyed, despite all […]

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The Last Emperor

Balu George — Thu, 05 Oct 2023 11:30:00 +0000

The boy of 11 is at a book fair. School is out in Cochin, India, and he has dragged his father along to the book fair in the city. In two days’ time, the family is going on vacation to Ahmednagar, where his father’s elder brother stays. The uncle works in a sugar factory there, […]

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Play it with Tremolo

Thomas Laver — Thu, 28 Sep 2023 11:30:00 +0000

“Whisper!” the priest commanded. In a second, the sound of my grade one classmate’s recitation plummeted from stentorian, to sotto voce, to smothered. He had just intoned the opening words of the Roman Catholic ritual of confession, “this is my first confession.” I was next in the confessional queue, but I couldn’t hear him mumble […]

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Appetite versus Appreciation

Emma Wilkins — Mon, 11 Sep 2023 11:30:00 +0000

Our “appetite for newness” is not unique to our times, but habits of replacing not retaining are. We’re familiar with the impact on our world, but have we considered its impact on our minds? The practice of “darning” — mending holes and tears in garments by interweaving yarn — was once a common one. Now […]

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Hindsight

Jeremiah Bass — Thu, 17 Aug 2023 11:30:00 +0000

In 2011, my wife, Casie, and I moved to Porto das Dunas, Brazil. We got an apartment on the beach; every piece of furniture in that fully furnished apartment was either covered with sticky, salty ocean air or crumbling to dust from the never-ending equatorial sun. The twin mattresses we pushed together flaked debris onto […]

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My Sister’s Bookshelf

Chris Orlet — Mon, 14 Aug 2023 11:30:00 +0000

Throughout the long-gone days of my childhood a thick, worn paperback sat on top of the lid of the tank of our upstairs toilet. Wilt, a biography of Wilt Chamberlain, the Hall of Fame center for the Los Angeles Lakers. My father had checked out the book on the only trip he ever took as […]

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Putting My Foot In It

Elliott Eglash — Thu, 03 Aug 2023 11:30:00 +0000

How to measure up to my mother’s kitchen? That wood-paneled heart of the house, where the fridge overflowed with vegetables and juices and nourishments of all sorts, and when she heard me open it, she’d tell me not to spoil my appetite.  Dinner was as close as we got to religion. Less the meal than […]

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