All posts by Rafael Alvarez

“Catch a cannonball, to take me down the line …” -- The Band Clarksdale, Miss. - First, a moment of silence for the soul of a great American, the

Carrier pigeon dispatches between my daughter Amelia and me on January 15, 2008 as I took my good old time approaching Austin, Texas from the west. Me: “Hello from

It's the morning of January 11, 2012--a gray, cold Wednesday in Highlandtown--and as people wait outside for the bus on Eastern Avenue, Andy Farantos dumps a stainless steel

I don't have Einstein's brain in the trunk, but I wish I did. Poe’s writing hand or the pinky upon which the guitarist Elmore James wore his metal

"They send me to eat in the kitchen when company comes, But I laugh & eat well & and grow strong ..." - Langston Hughes Where do people congregate at

It is an image worthy of the very best of immigrant literature, Call It Sleep, by Henry Roth; film -- Coppola's Godfather Part II -- and art, particularly

As jet-set Hollywood actor Doug Olear hops from one coast to the other – whether baking bread in his Beverly Hills apartment or breaking bread with old friends

"They say that if you bury a child’s umbilical cord in Texas, they will always come back home." - Jane Goforth, January 2008. I’m pretty sure my umbilical cord

On Monday – the 14th of January, birthday of Benedict Arnold – I pulled off of State Route 90 in Texas and into the fabled town of Marfa.