In the first paragraph of Deacon King Kong by James McBride, the title character, aka Cuffy “Sportcoat” Lambkin, shoots a young drug dealer on the plaza of a public housing project where they both live in 1969 New York City. The surprise is that a story with such a gritty opening turns out to be a genuine, feel-good, … Continue reading Deacon King Kong, a review
September 11th, 2001, was a big emotional punch to the gut to all of us, everywhere. Most particularly to those on the east coast of course, but we were all blindsided by it. It’s one of those days we remember and tell stories about like JFK’s assassination, the Moon Landing, John Lennon’s death: #WhatIWasDoingWhenIHeardTheNews One thing I remember … Continue reading September 11th
This morning I read an article about Mark and Patricia McCloskey, the couple who recently came outside their mansion to brandish loaded guns at peacefully demonstrating Black Lives Matter activists who were marching by on a public street. They claim they needed to do this; they were defending their house. The current Republican Party leadership … Continue reading Protecting Our Hives
This week when the Republican President and his entitled Secretary of Education demanded that public schools open full time/full service this fall, virus or no virus, OR they would lose federal funding, I became so upset that I turned off the computer, the TV, the radio. That was the straw. I couldn't stand to hear … Continue reading Time to Re-Open Schools?
This has been a very upsetting couple of weeks, but if you’re paying attention you already know that. Because of the continuing pandemic, I choose to be mostly homebound, writing, reading, zooming, watching fun stuff on TV like Star Trek and Christopher Guest mockumentaries. But this week I could barely tear myself away from CNN, … Continue reading Black Lives Matter
Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng is a well-written, topical book, an engrossing read, and the basis for a brand-new series starring Kerry Washington and Reese Witherspoon on Hulu. I want to tell you what I think about it, but let’s face it, I’m sure you can go online or pick up a TV guide … Continue reading Little Fires Everywhere, a consideration of race and class in America
Written with my Thursday Writing Group with the prompts: Silver spoon, marked safe, no desire to join them, it hurts, out the door, an old guy in a dark suit and red tie, “step over here, little lady,” I don’t belong here, hey--how did you get in here?, back to the times, traffic moved along, the … Continue reading Janet vs The Barbarians
