On the streets of Paris I sold the coolest American newspaper ever published in Europe [EXCLUSIVE TO MEDIUM] Like Jean Seberg in Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless, I spent some time in my early 20s sauntering up and down the Champs-Élysées in a sexy logo T-shirt hawking an English-language publication. …

flash fiction Jack and Jam were battling it out as usual. This time it was over another bottle of house red that Jack wanted to order, he was that extravagantly pleased with himself tonight. The novel was going well, he had just finished chapter seventy-four, he was sure he could…

This isn’t the picture of me at the BFI Database. It was sent to me by “John Fairfax”, who saw my posting on Twitter about my last feature film and my irritated comment about how I thought the British Film Institute had mixed me up with another (Asian, of course)…

Anthony Burgess, my Number One Language Guy, was on Dick Cavett’s talk show late one evening during my first year at music school. The host had brought up the oft-told story of how Burgess, when in his 40s, was diagnosed with a brain tumor and told he would be dead…

The man who proudly displayed this T-shirt on his Facebook profile also wrote this response to his unwelcome comments on a personal Facebook timeline (not mine) partially dedicated, at the moment, to grieving over a friend lost to violence: Wow! You sound angry. Who am I? Just a guy with…

“Pain Now for Clarity Later” When it was all done and I wasn’t in love with him anymore, I spent years afterward trying to pinpoint where it all went south between Stephen Gyllenhaal and me. More important, I tried to figure out where it all went south between Stephen and his muse. Was he a…

“I Thank My Mother for Choosing My Father” [IN WHICH STEPHEN FAILS TO RECOGNIZE JAKE’S SCREEN FATHER] You’ve probably gotten the idea that I was a little intimidated by Naomi Foner. Nothing could be further from the truth — I was terrified of her. Women of her class and Ivy League education have always terrified me, and hearing…