Essays/Op
Añoro
Based on the memories of my uncle, “Tio,” Alberto (or my reimagination of the inherited narrative of a reimagination) “I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.” -Jorge Luis Borges We were young. It was the Buenos Aires of 1950. The Spanish Civil War was so recent all the Argentinean Spaniards (of which... »
Green-Eyed Face(book)
A piece I wrote April 25. Green-Eyed Face(book) By Deborah Stokol I remember when it was new. When no one had heard of it. When no one was “on it.” When some classmate told me to join this cool new site just for college students and to “friend” him too. For some reason, we figured, keeping something... »
The Class I Wish I Could Take, Then Teach (A Personal Odyssey, etc.)
It would take one school year, perhaps, beginning in September and ending Bloomsday, June 16. It would include but four works, ending with a fifth, composed by the students, for the students. And the reading list would encompass an odyssey–literally–through literature and the various takes authors have had on the Greek story since Homer. The... »
A Letter to Students on Why We Read The Odyssey
I’ve been full-time substitute teaching English at Harvard-Westlake, my Alma mater, for six weeks now, lecturing on The Odyssey and covering Creative Writing. A few of my 9th graders have asked my why we read the epic piece, and I thought I’d write them a letter response. Here it is: — 4 March, 2010 To my dear... »
Superstition
I’ve got a lot of figurines. Stuff to which I’ve ascribed certain characteristics (but I do that to everything). I bought this beautiful cloisonne owl in an antique shop in Montreal. Pretty cool place–the city and the store. I saw the owl and thought “how awesome. it’s black and red on one side, yellow and white... »
Sympathy
The truth was, she couldn’t really imagine what it would feel like to be them. The truth truth was, she didn’t really want to. In a fit of fleeting empathy, she’d tried, she’d tried to close her eyes, put stoppers in her ears, refrain from what her fourth grade teacher once called “verbalization.” It... »
Riding the Devil’s Highway with Death, Desolation and Perhaps Accountability
Of course, he’ll tell you up front that half plus one died. But you need not wait for his report: the back cover will supply the same one before you read a single page. That the number of Mexicans crossing the border illegally continues to soar is an understatement. That 26 attempted to do so in... »
The Miseducation of L.A.’s Youth
They live in the country’s second largest metropolis, yet their education has robbed them of the ability to write in their native tongue. A mere one year away from legal adulthood, many of Los Angeles’ high schoolers maintain only the most tenuous grasp on elementary grammar. While I’ve been a journalist for a few years, I... »
One Chord Redemption
Granted, I am a heterosexual female. Perhaps my view on the matter simply cannot be trusted. Perhaps. But, on the other hand, just chalk it up to a love (sense?) of aesthetics—rife with all the attendant observational neuroses you’d expect that love (sense?) to espouse—and maybe the trust will come. So. Imagine you’re walking down the... »
Proof of [Having a] Life
![Proof of [Having a] Life](http://deborahstokol.com/wp-content/themes/magazine-basic/thumb.php?src=http://deborahstokol.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/warped-recursion-300x228.jpg&h=80&w=80&zc=1&q=80)
Reported October-November 2008, Written November 2008 *Joanna is not her real name. Were I simply to click through her Facebook photos, I would say Joanna Reginald* lives a life of charmed leisure. In picture after picture of the more than 4,000 she has up, I see the blonde with a frayed bob cut luxuriating in hot tubs,... »