Category Archives: semi-fiction

DUST THEN MUD by Peter Nolan Smith

Bangkok was an impossible city in hot season of 1990. Shady trees thankfully shaded the airless sois. The tepid klongs led to the Chao Phyra River. Weary barges transported rice from up-country. The ai-conditioning of Patpong’s go-go lounges chilled the flesh, but not the bones of the dancers. After a short stay at the Malaysia […]

The Death of the Road

In 2013 my summer holiday plans fell apart one by one. The Nantucket house had too many guests, my friend in Millbrook had accepted an invitation to the Rockefeller’s’ Adirondack estate, and my sister was leaving Maine for a conference in Boston. All the flights to Thailand were out of my budget and Labor Weekend […]

Joyous Lake 1975

The Aquarian Exposition: 3 Days of Peace; Music on Max Yasgur’s 600-acre dairy farm near the hamlet of White Lake in the town of Bethel, New York has impacted American music culture for over fifty years. Richie Havens opened the festival and Jimi Hendrix closed the concert with a fiery psychedelic finesse. A half million […]

NOTHING BETTER THAN PIZZA by Peter Nolan Smith

Back in 1995 I left the USA after the death of my younger brother. My plan was to visit the holiest places in Asia. I was a non-believer, but believed this pilgrimage would help Michael’s soul in eternity. By late August I had reached in old Yunnan city of Lijiang in Southern China. My hotel […]

Bad Road In Tibet

My visa for China was running out at the end of October 1995. My overland departure to Nepal had been delayed by a massive avalanche smothering Tibet-Nepal Friendship Highway, but the staff at the Snowlands Hotel in Lhasa announced that a rough track had been opened through the fall area and I bought a ticket […]