Stephen Yoshen & the Art of Losing
My friend Stephen Yoshen is the most capable and the most preposterous person I’ve ever known.
Capable in the sense that he can build a whole house in a matter of weeks, on his own when necessary.
Preposterous, well…
he once shot himself in the belly with a nailgun, used a pair of nailnips to pull out the 16-penny nail, and kept on working.
Or sometimes,he’ll be two stories high and he’ll LEAP from one extension ladder to another, just because he can.
He’s a dancer/carpenter, which is a subspecies of human we have in relative abundance out here in the hilltowns of western Massachusetts.
Stephen and his dancer friends have built who-knows-how-many houses in these hills, often for outrageously cheap.
Stephen is 70 now, and he has seen some shit.
You know that fish in the Elizabeth Bishop poem?
Huge, its skin hanging in strips, speckled with barnacles, five old hooks stuck firmly in its mouth but the fish is still breathing, battered and venerable.
That’s Stephen.
