Category Archives: semi-fiction

STUTTERING SIAM by Peter Nolan Smith

December 20, 2021 – 10:24 am

In the 1950s stuttering was considered a possible sign of mental retardation. At age 2 I spoke like a stuck record. My parents thought this disability would pass and I fooled them by mot speaking other than in single syllables. My family became accustomed to my aberrant speech habits, however upon entering Underwood Primary School […]

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1 + 1 = 2 Circa 1972

December 18, 2021 – 10:47 am

The simple addition of 1 + 1 is the first math learned by children. Addition is followed by subtraction, division, and multiplication. The nuns at Our Lady of the Foothills believed in the power of rote education and each student was expected to memorize the math tables from 1 to 12. Fingers and toes aided […]

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THE MEANING OF PURE by Peter Nolan Smith

December 7, 2021 – 7:10 am

In the summer of 1995 my baby brother died of AIDS. Our family buried his body in a grave south of Boston. After the funeral I left the USA and sought solace for Michael’s soul at the holy sites of Asia. I lit candles before the Buddha in Chiang Mai. I circumnavigated Lhasa’s Jokhang Temple. […]

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BIG FOOT by Peter Nolan Smith

November 30, 2021 – 6:51 am

In 1977 I moved out of my SRO room in Greenwich Village to the East Village with my hillbilly girlfriend. The third-floor walk-up on East 10th Street had a bathtub in the kitchen and a water closet off the living room. I carved Alice’s name on the wooden window sill. We lasted until 1979. The […]

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SUNDAY QUIETUDE by Peter Nolan Smith

November 6, 2021 – 1:46 pm

Ten years ago I took a young friend to see the Strokes at Saturday Night Live. The host was Miley Cyrus, the Disney teen sensation. The 19 year-old’s current worth is in the hundreds of millions and SNL’s producer followed the svelte brunette’s every move, as if he had plans for the perennial good girl. […]

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