And Your Little Dog, Too, by David Sedaris
“He just bit me!” I said. The woman stood upright and pushed her hair away from her face. She was pretty except for her mouth, which was thin-lipped and hard-looking. “Huh?” “Your dog just…
Tag
personal history
Gary Shteyngart’s Tragicomedy of the Penis in “The Guy Who Got Cut Wrong”
Watch “The Guy Who Got Cut Wrong.” Gary Shteyngart was just seven years old when his family emigrated from the Soviet Union and settled in Queens. He remembers the transition as one of…
What I Wanted, What I Got
The popular girl at my elementary school—let’s call her Denise—was not blond like Barbie but pretty in a conventional manner I envied. She had brown hair, skin that tanned easily, and a…
Scenes from the “This Is Spinal Tap” Cutting-Room Floor
In 1982, I began shooting an almost entirely improvised film,“This Is Spinal Tap,” which also happened to be my first as a director. It transformed my life and the lives of my three…
Finding a Family of Boys
In 1981, I was a student of art history at Columbia University. I was twenty-one and worked to support myself at a variety of jobs. Columbia was an all-boys school then. Old oak desks and…
Your Hip Surgery, My Headache, by David Sedaris
It was nice to get away, if only for a few hours. To have someone bring me bowls of nuts and glasses of water. At the table, I mentioned the lady who’d growled at me at CVS. Then Mike told…
Returning to the Scene of My Brutal Rape
A woman is running. In the path, a man appears as if from nowhere. He is masked and he holds a knife. What are her choices? On one side is the canal and on the other a high, impassable…