The story takes its title from the Yes classic, “Roundabout,” a song that has stuck with me ever since my freshman year of high school when I bought a cassette of Fragile. In the opening scene, two characters–college freshmen–are having a disagreement over the song. The main character is Timothy Ford, also the protagonist in the story “Wildlife.”
Category: Music
from Measuring Time: “Rod Stewart and My Ex Ruined my Date”
Other than the title work, “Measuring Time,” this is the oldest story in the book, originally drafted when my wife and I lived in Portland, Oregon, in the mid-2000s. During this period, I discovered Ann Beattie, Lorrie Moore, and Louise Erdrich, great writers all, and especially great writers of the humorous. The stories I was drafting incorporated more humor than in my prior stories.
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Rediscovering the Piano
The piano was one of my first loves. When I was three, I wrote my first song on it: “All My Bombs.” I grew up in the Cold War-era, Russia still an existential threat. But in those keys of the old player piano, there was magic. I loved to slide open the horizontal drawers and watch the hammers hit the strings as I plunked notes.