I wrote this story for my friend Hope Strong, the former editor-in-chief of the Teton Valley News in Driggs, Idaho. He asked me for a letter from the big city.
A letter from San Francisco
The other day in San Francisco, on the Fulton 5 municipal bus line, a young black man got on board and hip-rolled his way down the aisle. He was wearing what a lot of adolescents wear these days: pants so big and billowy they could have been hiding a VW beetle inside each leg and a sports jersey underneath a pullover. He had a blue LA Lakers hat on his head, the bill of which was turned sideways in the style that is the style, know what I’m sayin’? continue reading…
The billboards blinked. It was that time of evening, speeding down Highway 101, when the signs on the side of the road whipped past like a flip book: “You shall receive…24/7…Initial Public Offering…Until You Burst…Totally Free… Now.” Hyper thinking. The car accelerated. continue reading…
A long time ago, and a very happy time it was, I served as the editor of the “The Big Issue,” an annual magazine that asked leading writers and thinkers, from Tom Wolfe to the Dalai Lama, to write personal essays on provocative themes. One year the theme was “Time,” another, “What is True?” another, “The Pursuit of Happiness.” Suffice to say it was extraordinarily stimulating to be working with such interesting and articulate people. And that was just the staff of Forbes ASAP. continue reading…
