Old Shanghai was dying, losing between three and six streets a day. The modern city was strangling it among its many skyscrapers. Soon, in a few years at most, it will have disappeared. Yet, through ... [+]
E.E. King is a painter, performer, writer, and naturalist - She’ll do anything that won’t pay the bills, especially if it involves animals. Find her at www.elizabetheveking.com and amazon.com/author/eeking. "Hark the Four Tushinski Singy" is in Short Circuit #17, Short Édition's quarterly review.
My father was a writer. He wrote articles, short stories, children's books, and satires. Short, sharp, funny parodies like, I'm Okay, but You're Not So Hot, and the literary scavengers' answer to Johnathan Livingston Seagull—Ludwig von Wolfgang Vulture, about a vulture who learns to read.
He also wrote lyrics, usually to existing melodies. My mother was a classical pianist, and he became quite adept at putting words to the music of Mozart, Beethoven, and Verde. But he was just as happy to put words to popular and traditional ditties, too. Being a child, I had no idea his librettos weren't sta