Michael Faraday creates tiny earthquakes to watch the shaking. Try it: Spread sand on a metal sheet. Strike the edge with a violin bow and make that metal sing like catgut. See how particles jump and fall. Where they rest when the shaking is done. Look how they wrinkle. Curve. Cross. Explode into stars. Try […]
De puerta cerrada, huye el Diablo. The devil flees from a closed door. ~ Mexican proverb My ex-husband is a shaman now. He wears white cotton pants and gathers his supplicants together under the mango trees at his family hot springs in Veracruz, Los Milagros. He tells me about the temascal, or sweat lodge, that he built […]
If I’ve ever been booked, Junior asks. Come again? I fold my hands and force a smile, to show how polite I am, to create an impression. You have a record? I’m like: A record? Of what? Arrests, convictions. Don’t lie, he says, I can look it up easy. Look, I tell him, all’s I’m […]