The Forward

Abraham Cahan, founding editor of The Forward

The expression “I am looking forward to” should be excised from the language. The future will always take precedence over the present.  It’s the romantic predicament: that which doesn’t exist always trumps the palpable and real. Look back on the itinerary of your life and all the occasions in which future possibility loomed. It’s usually characterized by disappointment. You wait anxiously to see a loved one. They run towards you on the tarmac and as you squeeze them tight, it’s as if life were draining out of them. Possibility is a fish frantically slithering through your hands. The future is the elephant in the room, the present a second fiddler. It’s nice to be reunited with a long lost relative, but the real question is not when but how? Perhaps the present should be preserved in formaldehyde like Einstein’s brain with the future found in the archive of the famed Yiddish newspaper, The Forward.

read "Ultimate Rejection!" by Francis Levy, The East Hampton Star

and listen to "Don't Make Me Over" (1963) by Dionne Warwick