New Essay in The Sun

It’s been an extremely long time since I’ve had a new essay to share here. My piece “Lawn Skeletons” was published in the October issue of The Sun. It’s about people in my neighborhood staging increasingly elaborate skeleton scenes on their lawns, but also it’s about a lot more than that. A lot of people seem to like this one. It begins like this:

In my New Jersey neighborhood it’s become kind of a thing for people to decorate their front lawns with skeletons year-round. On New Year’s they put little party hats on them, give them a champagne flute to hold. On Mardi Gras, beads draped around their necks, maybe a cigarette clamped in their jaws. Fourth of July, all kinds of red-white-and-blue regalia. During the long stretches between holidays, the skeletons rest. Most often in Adirondack chairs. Maybe it’s like this all over the country. I don’t know. I just know what I’ve seen around here. Though I have thought about putting skeletons on my own lawn, I’ve never done it. I think it would stress me out too much, trying to stay topical without doing the same bit as everyone else. Also, by the time I got around to considering it, lawn skeletons had become commonplace, and my contrarian defense mechanism kicked in: if other people were enjoying it, it probably wasn’t worth doing. A dumb way to think.

You can find the whole thing here. And check out this cool art they made for it.

Also, not that anyone is checking this page regularly, but stay tuned for a pretty big announcement within the week.