As Briefly as Salmon clouds part we drive on rain-slicks of light cars before us trailing little rainbows in tire sprays fountains from the road up the shoreline under the shadow of rain we release the sun from our sight that our bodies can trap and hold that light for the flesh of an instant as briefly as salmon that leap fully into the air we hang for a moment on arcs water falling trails of quicksilver immortal for a moment the vision’s released Wulf Losee lives and works in the San Francisco Bay … Continue reading As Briefly as Salmon by Wulf Losee→
The old cantor and the new rabbi were to meet in the lunchroom behind the office wing of Congregation Beth Tzedek, the House of the Righteous. There was no empty office for the new rabbi, Jacob Kleck, to occupy, so the plan was to split the cantor’s office into two new but smaller rooms. It was unfortunate that only one of the new offices could possess the single window of the old room; the other would be windowless. The cantor intended to keep the window. For over four decades, Cantor Samuel Krakowski had shared his … Continue reading The Cantor’s Window by Michael Cohen→
Of course it’s only a coincidence that Armistice Day, the conclusion of World War I, falls (or used to) in November, that month which begins with All Hallows Eve and proceeds briskly to the Day of the Dead. It just happened that way. Armistice Day, has evolved into Veteran’s Day, still in November and it’s possibly not a coincidence at all that the Vietnam Memorial, that other reminder of war and its heroes, was dedicated in November of 1982. Dedicated, in fact, on November 13, the date on which I am posting these comments. In … Continue reading Forgive and Forget—Or Something Like That→
Chicago is in my blood, even though today I consider myself a Californian. My parents immigrated to the Windy City in the late 1950s; my younger brother, my three older sisters and I were all born on the Westside. Chicago has always been a tough, blue-collar town, made up of different ethnic neighborhoods that can be downright hostile to outsiders. But when my parents moved there, it was also a city where housing was very affordable, where working class wages were strong, and a place where you could get a good education at a fair … Continue reading Gangsters, Bigots, and Tough Guys: Growing Up Chicago by Alejandro Diaz→
The New World Order Blues is inspired by the late conspiracy researcher and radio personality Mae Brussell, updated for today’s concerns and presented in one of the greatest music styles ever created by Americans—Black Americans: The Blues. Listening to Mae’s weekly radio show, World Watchers was like getting a re-education in history of the 20th Century. She uncovered many well-kept secrets we were not supposed to know. The Military Intelligence Industrial Complex was her turf and each week, from a radio station in Carmel, California, she took the lid off the conspiracy machine so we … Continue reading New World Order Blues by Allen Forrest→
Sometimes trying to write is like playing Scrabble (old school—not virtual) and reaching into the bag for more letters only to have your fingers come up empty-handed. In fact, I’ve been racking my brain for blog topics for so long even my Facebook page has taken to castigating me. I’m pretty sure my disappointing search for ideas may have crossed over into Writer’s Block territory. For those who have never visited this particular geographical gulag, think ghost town in the middle of a super fund site—with a large population of large rodents. Recognizing the landmarks … Continue reading That Sketchy Area Known as Writer’s Block by Erika Raskin→
Because For Yannis Ritsos Because the watcher wrote red on the shop’s wall, because the half-candle was stolen & sold for fuel, because the innocent got hit with a cold, wet branch, because the town is divided by a line of blood in the sand, because the drug you bought was dropped in the ditch, because the sky is burnished with orange not unlike a lockman’s smile, because this rusty box houses a severed finger from an unknown hand, because the woman you saw walking in the market carried a purse made of flies, because … Continue reading Because by Charles Kell→
I wrote an entirely new Chapter 1 for the new edition of Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee (Holt 2006; rev. 2016). The idea to open the biography at a low point in the her life, instead of during childhood was suggested by Garrison Keillor in a review of the first edition appearing in the New York Times ‘Sunday Book’ section: ‘If you were going to draw a movie from this book, you’d start on York Avenue in Manhattan on a cold winter night in the late 1950’s. Pages of manuscript fluttering out of an … Continue reading The First Chapter by Charles J. Shields→
My father seemed well enough when I saw him, though he did remind me of someone who’d been woken up too quickly from a deep sleep and was trying really hard not to bump into any walls. I’m not sure how reliable my opinion was though, since I was only there for the weekend and was coming down with the flu or something by the time I got to the house. I felt feverish and sort of submerged most of the time and only felt better when I headed back to the city Sunday night. … Continue reading The Rock of Lost Hope by Bill Gaythwaite→
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