GRATITUDE

The post I intended has been postponed a week. I want to get to something both overdue and necessary. Gratitude. Cheers to the people on the pandemic’s front lines. Doctors and nurses. Ambulance drivers, lab techs and hospital janitors. A shout-out to non-medical folks promoting the general welfare: farmers and laborers, factory workers, cops, firefighters,…

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15 MINUTES OF FAME

In 1968, the artist Andy Warhol wrote, “In the future, everyone will be world famous for fifteen minutes.” Until last Sunday, I found myself fourteen minutes short. So I added a few seconds to my meager sum. I held a launch party for Big Truth: New and Collected Stories. My guests gathered at Lokma Turkish restaurant…

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SHAKESPEARE AND BALKANIZATION

“Dead black men” has become  oft repeated . Baltimore sadly offers the latest focal point for this phrase. “So attention must be paid,” says Willie Loman’s wife of her suffering husband in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman. But there’s a parallel to which attention also is due: “Dead white men.” That’s the rationale for…

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