Sublime

The Old Man and the Sea,

The following passage by Enrique Hank Lopez, “Back to Bachimba,”

Juan Arellano was from one of the most extraordinary families in the Philippines. One brother, Arcadio, was the first Filipino architectural adviser hired by the United States. Another, Manuel, would become one of the colony’s most noted photographers. Juan’s cousin Jose Palma wrote the national anthem used by Aguinaldo’s Philippine Republic (which

A good conversationalist is capable of leading people on a mutual expedition toward understanding.

The best parts of the past lapped gently around him, like ripples on a summer lake: the park on summer Sundays; his first paycheck; the reading room at the union headquarters, where he had discovered Marx and Dickens and Freud and Galdós, whom he had secretly loved best of all; nights in the plaza, when he and Pedro had flirted with the passing gir