Category Archives: Art

An Artist’s Fast Fingers

November 21, 2023 – 11:26 pm

My boss Manny started selling jewelry on Canal Street in 1954. He says that he didn’t sell his first diamond until a year later. “Back then all diamonds were white. We didn’t know any better and better still neither did the Gs.” Manny’s speech is colored by hundreds of diamond selling terms interspersed with Yiddish. […]

By Peter | Also posted in 80s, Bet On Crazy, Diamonds, NEW YORK, semi-fiction | Tagged | Comments (0)

Goodbye Columbus Day

October 11, 2023 – 5:23 am

Before the arrival of Christo Columbo in 1492, the New World was filled with empires, confederations, republics, city-states, and tribal lands. These diverse peoples represented a broad scattering of cultures. The population of the two connected continents has been estimated by modern historians to be approximately twenty-five million people from the Bering Straits to the […]

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Pattaya’s 2nd World Tattoo Festival

September 23, 2023 – 1:18 pm

Written May 23, 2008 My 5th Grade teacher, a nun, instructed her students that any souls arriving at the Pearly Gates with a tattoo on their deceased body would be dispatched immediately to Hell. Tattoos were a mortal sin for Catholics and despite having abandoned my Catholic faith I have retained the fear that a […]

By Peter | Also posted in Pattaya | Comments (0)

Per Capita Tattoo Capitol

September 23, 2023 – 11:36 am

Pattaya must be the per capita capitol of farangs with tattoos. Westerners parade shirtless to exhibit their body art, despite the collateral damage to the colored flesh from the tropical sun. Most tattoos are eagles, dragons, and declarations of never-ending love to go-go girls festooned with vows of fidelity to previous boyfriends. Occasionally you come […]

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THE BEST FORM OF FLATTERY by Peter Nolan Smith

August 10, 2023 – 4:31 am

Written Sep 24, 2010 Midtown traffic was snarled by the security measures protecting foreign dignitaries from any harm during the annual UN General Assembly. Crosstown streets were closed east of 5th Avenue and the beeping tentacles of the congestion packed Madison Avenue. My bus took twenty minutes to cover ten blocks. I was late for […]

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