-
1 month ago | 
humanparts.medium.com | Laurie Frankel
These are moments trapped on film that don’t mean much anymorePhoto #1:My six-year-old sister’s stubby arms reach from behind and gently cup my bent knees. Our cheeks touch. I hunch allowing her to fully encompass me as my mom snaps the photo. Her hair brushes over my forehead and, except for two smiles, we look as if we are one. As a kid Rachel gnawed on steak fat and cooked chicken tails making her pajamas fit tight across her bottom.
-
Feb 4, 2025 | 
humanparts.medium.com | Laurie Frankel
Member-only storyIt can be as destructive as any otherLaurie b. Frankel·FollowPublished inHuman Parts·9 min read·--Ddimitrova (Pixabay), edited by AuthorI bathe my two-week old nephew in the kitchen sink. There is a ledge in the basin, but he keeps slipping down. I cradle his head, all wobbly on a useless neck and wipe down his newborn body. I watched my mom this morning and know to gently clean all the creases where baby dirt hides.
-
Sep 2, 2024 | 
shepherd.com | Caitlin Weaver |Heidi Reimer |Laurie Frankel |Ashley Audrain
I loved this book'sraw, unflinching exploration of a taboo topic: the quiet regret some mothers carry. Through Sadie, a fierce Broadway star and feminist icon, and her daughter Jude, an actress on the brink of her own fame, Reimer paints a portrait that's complex and so intimate it’s almost uncomfortable at times. I appreciated how neither woman was cast as the villain, and in their struggle, I found I could relate to both of them at different moments.
-
Aug 18, 2024 | 
medium.com | Laurie Frankel
“If you had a gun…” my father, Marv, says, his gray hair cut so close the stubble sparkles in the light. “I don’t have a gun,” I say, for no particular reason other than the word “gun” seems to require immediate response. “If you had a gun,” my father repeats with a steady, almost-drunk stare, “you still wouldn’t get an answer to your question so stop asking.”We have gathered at a restaurant—eight of us—to wish this man, Marv Goldman, a happy birthday, his eighty-third.
-
Jul 23, 2024 | 
medium.com | Laurie Frankel
Nathan is a scratched, hairy butt crack and a cup of Postum®. He is our new stepfather and will get laid off from his job three years into the marriage, at which point he will live off my mother for the next seven years until she snaps to and unloads him. 306 Mangrove Road is a taupe, three-story, split-level housewith a one-car garage and a large bay window in the living room. The day my mom, two sisters, and I visit our new house it is hot.
-
Jun 30, 2024 | 
medium.com | Laurie Frankel
By Laurie b. Frankel LIFE A family visit to the LA County Museum of Art Composite using a photo by John More (creative commons) and a photo of John Farrow (Wikimedia Commons). There are five of us with audio guides making our way through the exhibit, Pompeii & The Roman Villa: Art and Culture Around the Bay of Naples at the LA County Museum of Art. All items were dug up sixteen hundred years after the blast that, even from five miles away, caught people unaware, mid-step, literally. That's the...
-
Jun 23, 2024 | 
channel3000.com | Amy S. Eckert |Lacey Russell |McKenna Ewen |Laurie Frankel
Grand Rapids, Michigan (CNN) — A rust-colored tree stands in the Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park in Grand Rapids, its leafless arms contrasting with the surrounding sugar maples. Get closer, and you’ll see this is no real tree but rather Iron Tree, a sculpture by Ai Weiwei. A short walk away stands Eve, a glossy bronze by Auguste Rodin tucked in a corridor of European hornbeam trees.
-
Jun 23, 2024 | 
yahoo.com | Amy S. Eckert |Lacey Russell |McKenna Ewen |Laurie Frankel
unknown content item-A rust-colored tree stands in the Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park in Grand Rapids, its leafless arms contrasting with the surrounding sugar maples. Get closer, and you’ll see this is no real tree but rather Iron Tree, a sculpture by Ai Weiwei. A short walk away stands Eve, a glossy bronze by Auguste Rodin tucked in a corridor of European hornbeam trees. Further still, Mark di Suvero’s 25-foot-tall industrial steel sculpture Scarlatti occupies a wildflower meadow.
-
Apr 3, 2024 | 
sansabanews.com | Laurie Frankel
Body by Laurie Frankel - Amazon review: India Allwood grew up wanting to be an actor. Armed with a stack of index cards (for research/ line memorization/make-shift confetti), she goes from awkward sixteen-year-old to Broadway ingenue to TV superhero. Her new movie is a prestige picture about adoption, but its spin is the same old tired story of tragedy. India is an adoptive mom in real life though. She wants everyone to know there’s more to her family than pain and regret.
-
Apr 2, 2024 | 
medium.com | Laurie Frankel |David Todd McCarty
O n my morning walk, heading up a long hill, I saw a rabbit lying on its side in the immaculately-clean gutter, its body pressed into the curb, appearing as if on break, casually resting, nearly invisible as cars raced past. I turned off my podcast, used the nylon bag I carried to pick up the rabbit. I worried she might bite, but no, nothing like that. Instead, her hind legs, extended long, kicked out a pas de deux as I reached for her, but the rest of the body wasn’t going anywhere.
