The righteous social justice publisher, Wising Up Press, from Decatur, Georgia, has released their latest anthology, this one simply called Goodness. Several dozen writers grapple with the concept, sharing poems, short stories, essays, and many affecting memoirs, all manifesting a sense, a feeling, of something we all recognize and yearn for but often cannot define....
We’ve consulted the elves, fairies, and ancient spirits flitting around our garden, and they’ve offered some insights into the future. We predict: + A cataclysmic environmental disaster on the scale of the 9/11 attacks, such as the entire continent of Australia going up in flames, will spark a global revolution of unprecedented size and impact,...
When we consider regions of the world less “developed” than ours, let’s keep in mind Europe (and its imperialist offspring around the globe, like the United States) were also once Medieval. We, too, were once benighted, ignorant, backwards. Long ago, our civilization preferred the mystical powers of alchemy to the rational comforts of science, the...
The impossible is possible. We understand the concept in theory; films like “Free Solo” remind us of the thrilling truth. The movie documents climber Alex Honnold’s attempt to scale Yosemite’s iconic El Capitan cliff face — more than 3,000 feet of virtually perpendicular rock — without ropes, clamps, or nets, using only his claw-like hands,...
You may have been distracted by more important Current Events — like something rude our President said, or a lie that was uttered on a news entertainment program. Not long ago our elected representatives in Congress and the White House passed a bill authorizing $717 billion in what’s comically called “defense” spending. This massive payday...
Amy E. Wallen’s childhood was different than most little American girls from Nevada. Thanks to her dad’s job as an oil prospector, the family spent her formative years in Nigeria, Peru and Bolivia, where daily life was kissed by exoticism: parrots for pets, servants calling her “small sister,” and dead bodies. Many of them. Wallen’s...
HAIRY GOD A Play in One Act “West End Blues,” performed by Louis Armstrong, fills the dark theater. Fade-up on a black stage bereft of scenery except for a brilliant white sheet, which hangs from ceiling-to-floor in the middle of the playing space. Standing before the sheet, dressed in a full-length tunic befitting authority...
My neighbor died after a long illness. Until his last year, when he was incapacitated by infirmities, he’d enjoyed a rich and meaningful life, a full life, creating memories and children, wealth and legacies. When he expired at the home he had occupied for nearly 50 years, he was almost 93. At his funeral, the...
“I’ll Be Me,” a documentary about music legend Glen Campbell’s decent into Alzheimer’s is a deeply affecting, often painful portrait of an artist slowly going away. Director James Keach successfully tiptoes the line between education and exploitation, between truthfulness and vulgar voyeurism. The film has many of the hallmarks of a stylishly produced “Reality” show — confessional...
The novel “Mortal Coil” is a clever chameleon that passes itself off as, variously, a thriller, a fantasy, a romance. But this splendid book is foremost a work of intensely considered philosophy, a metaphysical exploration of heaven and earth, reality and imagination, humans and angels. The author is Amnon Buchbinder, a Canadian screenwriter, director and...
Hope RekindledThis past week has given us more hope for our diseased republic than any other time in 50+ years of paying attention. Observing and participating in a long-overdue peaceful uprising, occupying the streets, feeling the righteous energy of people of all ages, colors, faiths, and wealth (or lack thereof), has…
Alien invasion! Earth occupied by creatures far smarter than humans! Thousands of years of civilization rendered irrelevant! Cory Finley’s movie adaptation of M.T. Anderson’s novel Landscape with Invisible Hand accomplishes the impressive feat of being simultaneously incisive/critical/instructive and entertaining/funny/touching. While the film is ultimately a scathing indictment of colonialism, capitalism, and artificial intelligence, the action...
