I always used to wonder what it would feel like to live through the sudden collapse of a peaceful and integrated society. We like to scare ourselves with this question when we read books or watch movies about military invasions or hostile occupations or war crimes: what if we ourselves … Read the rest
“Out demons out!” I don’t know why it’s feels so cathartic to me every time I listen to the recording on the 1968 Fugs album “Tenderness Junction” of a historic event a year before, the exorcism and attempted levitation of the Pentagon in USA’s capital city by a determined group … Read the rest
I was already thinking about Columbia University, where courageous students are calling out the college administration’s support for genocide in Gaza, when I heard Paul Auster had died of cancer at the age of 77 in his home in Brooklyn. Paul Auster was widely celebrated as a Brooklyn writer from … Read the rest
I really don’t know what happened to me about five years ago, when I suddenly found it difficult and annoying to write blog posts.
I suppose this wasn’t so strange, because it is difficult to write good blog posts, and difficult things can be annoying. What was strange is that I’d … Read the rest
Jack Kerouac was born 100 years ago today, on March 12, 1922. I wrote a poem about this.
… Read the restThe poets are coming out of the woodwork lately
Called by a voice, and our careworn restless souls
Jack Kerouac! We called you famous for a book
It was a rough day for me back in February of this year when the great Beat publisher, bookseller, pacifist and poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti died at the age of 101, and I couldn’t post about it on Litkicks. I was right in the middle of migrating this entire website to … Read the rest
I took a walk through Prospect Park today. These hilly acres in the middle of Brooklyn were designed to get you lost, with swerving paths that make you think you’re walking in a definite direction as they subtly turn you back again until you pass the spot where you started … Read the rest
I’ve been thinking about voice — about my own voice, and about the word ‘voice’. I looked up quotes with the word ‘voice’ and immediately found a bunch that got me thinking. So many worthwhile quotes, in fact, that I stopped reading after I got to these four:
… Read the restThe one
A few days ago a friend told me she was worried about my rage. “You seem upset a lot,” she said.
Another friend told me the same thing after seeing my photos of a protest march. This friend says I need to “relax” about Donald Trump, Mike Pence, stolen seats … Read the rest
