Category Archives: semi-fiction

SNOW DAY by Peter Nolan Smith

Several years ago I woke up to a heavy snow falling fast on the Fort Greene Observatory and I asked the head curator AP, if he was sending his two young children to school. “Of course I am.” AP worked from home and his kids like all kids were attention-seekers. “So no snow day?” The […]

Chinese Iron Rooster BET ON CRAZY

My teenage nephew stopped by 47th Street yesterday evening. It was closing time for our exchange. Zeb goes to a mid-town high school. Public. His father works over at Rockefeller Center. He does something with TV. “You going home?” Zeb and I lived in Fort Greene. His father worked late. The long-haired student liked my […]

Singapore To Bangkok By Train

In 1990 I bought a second-class ticket from Singapore to Bangkok with stops in Penang and Suranthani. The old Pearl of the Orient was too clean for me. The Chinese president had ordered the city-state’s police to fine people for chewing gum or not washing their hands after using the WC. Effacing the walls with […]

Tennyson Walk the Isle of Wight 1985

December 1985 Vonelli invited Lizzie and me to the Isle of Wight. We were sitting in a Bastille cafe. Lizzie had a show on TV that night. Her song was playing on the radio. I had to work at the Balajo later. There wasn’t much holiday spirit on the Rue De La Roquette. “We’ll do […]

Bowery Boxing Day – Dec 5, 2010

Boxing Day is celebrated on the day after Christmas mostly in the UK and host of occupied nations dominated by the British Empire such as Australia, Canada, Ghana, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Nigeria, Kenya, Guyana, Trinidad & Tobago, and Jamaica. For years I thought ‘Boxing Day’ was traditionally the holiday on which the rich gave […]