Just Published!
The Older You Get the Shorter Your Stories Should Be
A warm, witty collection of bite-sized stories, outsized characters, offbeat observations, and globe-trotting misadventures, The Older You Get the Shorter Your Stories Should Be is a lighthearted chronicle of a lifelong storyteller.
“Reflections on a well-lived and adventurous life… charming, funny, poignant and wise.” — Drew Faust, President Emerita, Harvard University
“A riveting and rollicking collection of tales… With brutal candor and self-deprecating wit, Bowie unspools stories that both entertain and pack plenty of wisdom.” — Ben Bradlee Jr., Pulitzer Prize-winning editor of The Boston Globe’s Spotlight Team
“Pearl after pearl — brief easily-accessible stories that reflect the unclouded eye of the author for all things honest, compassionate and revelatory. I laughed, cried, reflected, regretted and rejoiced.” — Ty Cobb, Prominent Washington, D.C. lawyer and former White House Special Counsel
Now on Amazon!
An Accidental Diary
A sonnet a week for a year
An Accidental Diary has just been published. I am both surprised and extremely proud of my unusual book.
In writing a sonnet a week for a year, I discovered — almost 20 years later — that I’d created a wild subconscious diary in a year of transition.
It was whatever was on my mind Sunday night while working to meet my deadline.
It was what I had kept hidden from myself back then and what years later would happen: fond recollections and musings on loss, lust, love of family, my fear of dying alone, a sad divorce and, back then, even efforts to quit smoking.
I hope you’ll give it a read.
Plays by Robert Bowie, Jr…
Sold-Out Shows, Rave Reviews!
Our FringeNYC premiere could not have gone better…
ONAJE sold out all five shows, the performances were riveting, and both audiences and critics were exceedingly positive. Check out these great reviews from onstageblog.com and Theatre is Easy (theasy.com) .
Thanks again to our incredible cast, crew, and creative team — and to everyone whose generous support helped bring ONAJE to life!
Recent Posts
Hold onto Your Baseball Cards and Don’t Lose Your Marbles
Have you been following the economics of this country recently?
Guess who was invited to President Trump’s private event for customers of his cryptocurrency business on Thursday and given a White House tour on Friday?
I wasn’t!
I called my friends, Peter, Belinda and Liza, to see if they had been part of this same oversight by the President.
Peter, Belinda and Liza and I were neighbors during our middle school years and have been friends ever since for over 60 years, and all of us were there from the beginning of cryptocurrency.
They weren’t invited either!
We concluded that this oversight by the President was not his fault and was due to only one possible interpretation.
Our President does not know a lot of American history or, to be a little more polite, he has not yet become aware of the true history of cryptocurrency.
As the rest of us already know, cryptocurrency was quietly created after Nixon took the country off the gold standard. Quite conveniently, it was the same time the first Topps baseball cards were issued in five-card packs with a card size slab of bubblegum included.
The retail cost was five cents per pack. A penny for each card and the bubblegum was free — age appropriate pre-pubescent genius marketing.
A half century before cryptocurrency entered the world stock market, Peter and I were both early investors in baseball cards, and then found another lucrative market in marble monopolies. We were early traders in pre-crypto middle school cards and marbles during recess.
Peter cornered the marble market so effectively that the marble market collapsed after he won all the marbles.
I tried to make a run on “big marbles” so I dressed up my little middle school self and went to pawn shops and antique stores looking for clear round door knobs.
Regrettably, no door knobs are completely round and thus valueless in the larger marble markets.
As a result — for the good of the market — Peter gave a written announcement handed out to the neighborhood that he would be emptying several boxes of marbles to the neighborhood market for free one late spring Saturday afternoon. It happened out of a second floor window with the driveway below. It was an early example of flooding the market.
Peter emptied five bankers boxes of multi currency marbles, including “puresy boulders” and several stunning “jumbo spirals.” The market was saved and Peter had made recess fun again.
Baseball cards back then were “to die for,” particularly if you had a complete set. Peter had a complete set of baseball cards for the years 1957, 1958, and 1959.
Even in middle school, you knew these people were serious people! Peter was a born collector and became a well known New York art dealer. Liza became a respected museum curator in Washington DC, and Belinda became a brilliant art writer and critic.
In the alternative, when I went off to college, my mother emptied my closets and threw away all of my marbles and baseball cards… and I became a lawyer.
At the same time as Trump’s cryptocurrency banquet and tour of the White House, his administration announced that they would be retiring the penny because it was not cost-effective to produce it anymore. They had determined that it took four cents to produce a penny. Think about the appreciated value of just one card, bought for a penny. Or even better, a complete set.
Ever since Nixon took us off the gold standard, our currency, stocks and bonds, like cryptocurrency, have no value other than the theoretical value according to the market.
However, with marbles and baseball cards, unlike cryptocurrency, there is the added component of artistic beauty. They are self valuing and hold a valuable historical record on the flip side of the picture — batting average and stolen bases and other stats.
Also, the bubble gum is great for the dental economy.
Hold onto your baseball cards and don’t lose your marbles!
A Complete Unknown
When Susan and I flew to Paris again this year for three weeks this spring, I had planned to watch the Bob Dylan movie, “A Complete Unknown” on the flight that night, but I was too tired so I slept instead. Paris was warming to its spring as we landed at Charles De...
April in Paris + a Week in May
I’m not really worried about Trump taking over Harvard, so Susan and I are going to Paris this Saturday for a couple of weeks. Why is everybody so upset? It seems like all the commentators have completely overlooked Trump’s leadership skills when he ran Trump...
The Best Memory You May Have Ever Had
If you’re like me, the best memory you ever have had is an act of self-deception that you can’t remember. However, if you happen to stop forgetting for only a fraction of second it will be abrupt recollection. It is like if you have ever accidentally slammed a door...
About Robert Bowie, Jr.
Playwright and Poet Robert Bowie, Jr. of Baltimore, Maryland has had ten plays produced, including “Onaje,” which was selected for professional production at FringeNYC in October 2018. Its five sold-out FringeNYC performances received rave reviews. Other plays include “There Ain’t No Wyoming” and “Naked House Painting Society,” which were produced through The Baltimore Playwrights Festival. Bowie’s political farce “Crash & Burn P.A.” was the only submission selected by the 2016 Festival Committee for a full production at Theatrical Mining Company, Baltimore.
Bowie’s plays are focused on social justice and span a broad spectrum between drama and comedy. His subject matter ranges from racial prejudice and civil rights to political farce.
Bowie is a graduate of Harvard University and is the Poet Laureate of The Harvard Alumni Association (HAA).
His well-reviewed collection of sonnets, An Accidental Diary, is available to order online.
“Without the arts, we are a rudderless boat.”
— Robert Bowie, Jr.