personal history
Ten Years Ago: Goodbye Scholastic
On November 11, 2011, after 19+ years of employment, I left Scholastic’s Classroom Magazines division. This is the farewell e-mail I sent to my co-workers. It’s hard to believe I’m typing these words, and this will be a shock to many of you. But with a ridiculously heavy heart, I must announce I have decided […]
Thank You, Delfino’s
On social media, my Amazon author page, dating sites, etc., I always mention my interest in sandwiches. I like ’em. And when you find a good sandwich, by god you stick with it. For the past 21 years, that’s meant a chicken parm from Delfino’s in Hoboken. Friday, July 2, was their last day in […]
The Plot Against Hoboken Jack
AN OPPORTUNITY CAME UP AND I THOUGHT OF YOU! read the e-mail’s subject line. My spam radar went off but, no, the sender was totally legit: Gail Solomon, VP of communications at my beloved Kessler Institute for Rehabilitation. Evidently, a casting agency had contacted her, looking for a white, caucasian, double amputee (check, check, and […]
The Wit and Wisdom of Lee Israel, Vol. 9 (July – Aug. 2012)
This Friday, the movie we’ve all been waiting 3.5 years for, Can You Ever Forgive Me? based on the memoir by Lee Israel, will finally be released. Lee herself had been waiting even longer, and died before the contractual t’s were dotted and eyes were crossed as it were. But back in the 2012, she […]
These Eyes Spy Cheese Fries: The Return
I was talking with Kelli from the band Resounding No, and she mentioned a beloved childhood fast-food joint, Burger Express in Carteret. In researching it, she had stumbled upon a review I wrote which appeared in the New Jersey section of the New York Times way back on October 1, 2000. I asked if the […]
Meatball Sandwich Review: Frank & Joe’s
It was thrilling to learn how to drive again at the Kessler Institute for Rehabilitation in West Orange, New Jersey, this past June. But almost equally exciting was finding out that my instructor Maria’s father ran a pizza place in Paterson. I promised myself that when I was finally an approved driver, with hand controls […]
30 Ounces of Shit in a 15-Ounce Bag
I’ve freely discussed, and written about, the amputation of the lower portion of both my legs, and life since then. I had made a conscious decision to be open about it, and I really think that’s made it easier for me to cope. It’s also truly helped to meet and befriend some other amputees to […]
The Wit and Wisdom of Lee Israel, Vol. 8 (June 2012)
Today would have been Lee’s 78th birthday. Let’s celebrate with another entertaining batch of her correspondence, this time involving baseball, another mention of her movie deal, and some fun at the expense of (now recently dead) gossip columnist Liz Smith. We pick up with an update on the doctoral dissertation for which I’d recommended Lee […]
Hallucination #3: Springsteen
A series of recollected hallucinations from my early weeks of hospitalization, 2016. As Bruce Springsteen begins his highly anticipated run on Broadway, I thought it was high time to recount when my infection-ravaged mind took me from the hospital to E Street. I certainly had Bruce on the brain: I entered Hoboken University Medical Center […]
Backpack Backtrack
I take very good care of my backpacks. (Umbrellas too, but that’s another story.) As a result, I can remember every backpack I’ve ever owned. When my sister was graduating college, I was graduating high school, so she bequeathed me her grey JanSport backpack to begin my own university career. That was my first. JanSport […]
Jack Silbert, curator