"Start with skepticism" - H. Zinn

It was a miserable November day last fall -- an unnerving mess of rain, wind, and cold. I don't know whose bright idea it was to walk down to Soho and look for jeans -- probably mine, and yes, I am embarrassed to admit it. Coming upon a line outside Cooper-Union's Great Hall, RG and I spontaneously decided to wait in it so that we could join the audience for a special event that day,  "The People Speak Live." Matt Damon was headlining to promote a History Channel documentary with his old Cambridge neighbor, Howard Zinn. Despite the inclement weather, our deliberation was brief: Shopping or intellectual self-improvement..."Howard Zinn is, like, major," I think I said.

Looking withered at 87,  Zinn maintained a very charming vibrancy and sharpness of mind, commenting on audience questions such as the reality of Obama's presidency vs. his campaign hype with,  "What comes through clearly is that we cannot depend ... on [political leaders] to remedy the injustices. It's people's movements that push and prod the leaders of our government."

RIP, Howard. We couldn't help but fall in love with you, not just a little, but a lot. Now go and check out A People's History of the United States.

There is my mind

Here lies the brain of H.M., the most famous patient in memory research. He died last year at the age of 82, after over five decades of being intently studied by neuroscientists. When he was 9, he was hit by a bicyclist, and began suffering epileptic seizures -- up to 11 each week. In his mid-twenties, he underwent a lobotomy which essentially made the seizures go away, but also mistakenly took away his ability to remember anything new.  So if you asked him at 6 p.m. what he'd had for lunch that day, he couldn't say. Yet most of his memory up until the surgery remained intact. For example, while he was never able to remember new acquaintances again, he remembered his mother. And after she passed away, he experienced grief each time he learned of her death -- again and again. Though it's difficult to grasp how he perceived his life, he once said:

"It does get me upset, but I always say to myself, what is to be is to be. That's the way I always figure it now."

Thank you, H.M., for all that we have learned from you, and your 2,401 brain slices which the U.C. San Diego Brain Observatory will now be studying. And for those minds whose whereabouts we are still looking for, thank you Maxence Cyrin for taking on the search.

Rivers

When I was in California a couple months ago, I was assigned to interview Rivers Cuomo for Nylon magazine. I asked him all kinds of questions, like if he still asks groupies to jump naked on his hotel room bed after shows. Some of his responses made it into the article. It's out now in the November issue, the one with Serena Van der Woodsen on the cover.

P.S. No, he does not bounce naked on his bed with fans now - maybe just his family.

The Walker

My friend Maggie.

It's been awhile since I spent much time around caskets and dead people, but after being thrown into a dark coffin last night and spun around (For fun! Really! Yes, way!), it reminded me of a story I once wrote that required me to work in a Detroit-area funeral home. At the time, particularly after observing my first embalming, I felt I had been damaged for life. But as my friend Dave recently reminded me, "Nothing lasts."

I just posted the whole text, which you can read here. (You may want to skip the New England Institute embalming description if you plan on eating any time in the near future.)

For the last year, I've been writing my way in and around this recession, attempting to take advantage of slower times, promising myself to finally spend time on "my own writing." I took off for California again, but instead of producing copious amounts of cohesive book chapters and scripts, I generated pages of fragmented, confused narrative, and really, just lived. I went to the ocean, often; I became fairly obsessed with hunting for wild fruit. I climbed fire trails, watched sunsets, prepared elaborate dinners involving caviar and saffron with friends and family. I tried in vain to answer a question from a child at the school where I volunteered: Why do clouds float? I touched melting glaciers, descended into craters, and yesterday, having returned to the city, witnessed the Tompkins Square Park dog halloween parade.



Today, as fall wrings out the last days of warmth, I sat on the front stoop of my new home-for-now and read John Steinbeck. "And although it has nothing to do with this story, no Abbeville child, no matter who its mother was, knew the lack of a stick of spearmint ever afterward."

It's a men's world.

This month on newsstands, I have two pieces out. For your convenience, you need only stop at the men's interest section. In Nylon for Men, a short profile about Danish rock band Mew. And in Men's Health, Go Fish!