In second grade, I was assigned the role of a Pilgrim woman in the Thanksgiving play. I wore a dull, gray dress with an itchy, starched white collar and I had only two sentences to say: “Look, look, the Governor is coming. He is such a fine man.” Even as a seven-year-old I recognized that this was a smarmy speech and a bit part, but such was the lot of us Pilgrim women. We all delivered our brief lines and then stood back, pretending to stir things while the Governor and Squanto got all the action. … Continue reading My Pilgrim Problem→
When I first moved to Qatar ten years ago, I was disappointed to find that the desert of the Qatar peninsula (on the northeastern coast of the Arabian peninsula) was not as lush as that of Arizona, where I previously had lived and fallen in love with Sonoran plants and animals. At first, Qatar’s desert appeared to be nothing but a barren wasteland. Then I was introduced to a local artist and wildflower expert who, every spring after the rains, took us out into the desert to search for flowers and other … Continue reading Desert Ecology: Lessons and Visions→
And you know I don’t mean Thanksgiving. Or Christmas. You do know that, right? I notice that the newspapers, the internet, the TV, are all full of stories about the seasons coming, by which they mean Thanksgiving and Christmas — just as they have been full, of course, about the season past, which is to say Halloween. This is certainly an effect of capitalism, which the media, being its children, cannot ignore. It’s their business, after all. Halloween? Buy lots of candy! Thanksgiving next, buy your turkey here! Christmas after that, be sure and … Continue reading It’s Coming, Ready or Not – A Rant→
As I write, Halloween is upon us. Not that I need to say anything. Signs of its approach have been around for a while. It is unlikely to slip by unnoticed. Depending on how you measure such things (public displays, retail spending, poll numbers), Halloween is challenging Thanksgiving for second place among our culture’s favorite holidays, and it has the momentum going forward. Poor All Saints’ Day, the original reason, after all, that there is such a thing as Halloween. Safe to say that most people who enjoy the make-believe, the trick-or-treating, or the … Continue reading All Souls→
Western photographer Katherine Minott moves in close in color and black and white. Her closeups — abstracts as well as things recognizable — explore “the beauty hidden in every day objects, the sacred hidden in the mundane.” Her subjects from broken eggs and weathered wood to purple kayaks and hot pink splattered paint, highlight intense contrasts and intimate observation. Minott equally enjoys shooting in color and black and white. “Often black and white lends itself to capturing the ‘soul’ of something, like a tree with sunlight streaming through leaves,” she … Continue reading Up Close in Color and Black & White: Katherine Minott→
Charlottesville’s Les Yeux du Monde Gallery is presently exhibiting a solo show by mixed media painter and landscapist Anne Slaughter, profiled earlier in Streetlight. Slaughter is known for her layered sculptures and earthy, semi abstract landscapes, works that show the effects of weather and time’s relentless passage. Her present show, Connections, is dedicated to figures, although faceless, for the first time. Slaughter’s show will run until November 16th. Visit https://www.lydm.co/ to read more. The McGuffey Arts Center’s Sarah B. Smith Gallery is now showing samples of the Charlottesville area’s quality pottery, fiber art, furniture, jewelry, glass, leather and … Continue reading Art Notes by Elizabeth Howard→
Stevie Nicks Under the strobes guitar hands, neon blonde. She sings like a forty-year-old child, wears a witch’s cape. Tosses back her jukebox tenor to the audience. We stone up, all the freaks in the back row, breathless. Where was I going before I heard her music? Back when the world was hunger, and we only took. Ann Robinson’s work has appeared in American Literary Review, Connecticut Review, Fourteen Hills, Hiram, Poet Lore, Spoon River Review, Valparaiso Poetry Review, and Whiskey Island Review among others. Her poetry book Stone Window, by Bark for Me Publications, came out … Continue reading Stevie Nicks by Ann Robinson→
It was midnight of our last night in the cannery, and all twelve of us who had been assigned the fish house had been working since seven that morning. All day and into the light-filled night, we had been cleaning fat salmon as they slithered out of the tin chutes directly from the salmon boats. White fish bellies were burned on my lids when I closed my eyes, and my ears sang with an exhausted hum. When the warning bell rang, down slid silver salmon, spilling, wet and shiny, onto the long, wooden tables. We … Continue reading The Hairy Man by Laurie Billman→
Memphis, on the brink of World War II, a crowded city, my family squeezed in a small duplex. Mother and Father work in weapons factories. We’re gathered around the radio in our tiny living room. Suddenly a shout bursts from the curved wooden box— “Pearl Harbor has been bombed!” Three years old I hear Mother’s small scream, see my Father’s frown grow deeper. Not sure where or what Pearl Harbor might be, I’m afraid to sleep that night. I lull myself with a favorite nursery rhyme. Hey diddle diddle, The cat and the fiddle, The … Continue reading Magical Thinking by Judy Longley→
October 16 marks the official publication day for Erika Raskin’s debut novel, Close. Published by Harvard Square Editions, Close details the moving, wryly funny and ultimately fateful actions of a single mother trying to cope with raising three daughters. The book has already generated some glowing advance reviews on goodreads.com (“an incredible family dynamic and a plot twist that makes it impossible to put the book down…”) Raskin, who lives in Charlottesville, says she has been writing “off and on since elementary school.” Her fiction has been published in a number of … Continue reading From Close to Couric: Some upcoming events→
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