“Pause,” like the nostalgia it references, possesses the qualities of ceremony. My ceremony: I played and replayed this song that year, transforming past into present into past over and over.
Even the girl busted for drunk driving before she was even old enough to get her license seemed impressed: “You and your parties! You guys are just crazy.”
Halloween afternoon, my senior year of high school. At the end of the school day, shadows already stretch from the huge white pines near Newton Square.
She drew cartoon sketches of herself. I sent more mix-tapes. Within a few months, in the middle of a five- or six-page letter, she wrote that she loved me.
The affection Joshua Harmon has for Poughkeepsie is the kind one might have for an alcoholic uncle or an abusive neighbor who occasionally tells good stories. The only love here…