Danube

Soon the water is at your throat. Now the cool of the water has replaced the warmth of the summer day. A few more steps and you are under. But you can breathe. There is no fear within you as you walk forward and leave behind the steps of the rampart and eventually feel your feet sink into the mud. You can see the waters flowing all around you, and you are able to see what the river brought with it over the centuries. You see barges of grapes from upstream, heading south where they will be churned into wine. You see grain from northern Europe, passing through Hungary, headed for parts south, for larger ships awaiting cargo in the Black Sea.

Mississippi 8 & 1

11:56 pm and the concrete felt like a griddle.  The sweat on June’s feet hissed steam against the broken rock, not that you could’ve heard it over the racket coming out of the river bottom down the way.  Crickets and frogs, mostly.  Full moon shining like a streetlamp - only light out there, shone the stars out.

The Way I Remember It

The father handed the box to the grandfather, and he cocked his head as if acknowledging his son should have the honor. The father ripped off the paper, opened the box, and removed a black gun.

That couldn’t really be a gun. I stared with my mouth open as the baby held out his hands and wiggled his little fingers just out of its reach. Then the grandfather placed the end of that shiny black pistol into the baby’s mouth, who sucked on it like a new toy.

Art, Naked

Ai Weiwei's foreman looks remarkably similar to Ai himself, so much so that when people see him (the foreman, that is) there is the kind of communal, hushed stirring that happens around a possible celebrity sighting: Is that—? No, it couldn't be…is it though? The disappointment when the truth is revealed: no, it’s not Ai Weiwei. The man in question turns out to be one of four of Ai’s employees who have traveled from China to the States on his behalf.