One cranky bastard reviews another
Too much time has apparently passed since anyone took the time to deliver a postmortem groin kick to John Steinbeck. Forty years dead, Steinbeck has not been properly pilloried by the tweedy legion of East Coast ancients for a good long while. Fortunately, the author of the seminal work on George Balanchine has stepped forward to remind the boorish vulgarians that Steinbeck was a preachy oaf who ...
The Party That Cannot Change
A couple of articles about the Republican Party as it comes into focus during the convention:John Nichols in The Nation calls the party platform "a document that steers far to the right even of the conservative positions taken by Arizona Senator John McCain," and says, "There is simply no question that the GOP that meets in St. Paul to grudgingly nominate John McCain for president ...
Vicki's Favorite Quote This Week
"Go deep,Reach deeper,Reach deeper into theSource of Love."Daddy King, the Reverend Martin Luther King, Sr.I have two sources!"No Turning Back, My Summer with Daddy King" by Gurdon Brewster (Publisher: Orbis Books)A wonderful journey with Gurdon Brewster during the summer he was welcomed into the King's home. He learned about the realities of Civil Rights in the USA. He ...
The start of national autism month: An...
As we kick off national autism awareness month, I'm out doing my part. I wrote a short essay for CNN's I Report that you can read here: http://www.ireport.com/docs/DOC-7427I'm out there talking about autism, Asperger's, neurological differences, and making it in the world. I've got a bunch of speaking engagements in schools this month.Some of the schools I visit focus on kids with neurological ...
Getting it out in time
Something strange always happens when NaNoWriMo rolls around. Maybe it's the time of year, or maybe the universe conspiring against me, but something always comes up. Last year I was lucky. I had a little down time between jobs and I had a great novel idea that was on the verge of just exploding out of my forehead. I couldn't get it out fast enough! If I remember right, there was one day where I ...
Translation as liberation
“Translations, being poems too, are never finished, only abandoned”, wrote A.K. Ramanujan, extending Valery’s observation on poems. Does the similarity stop there, or, is the process of translation as intense as that of writing poetry? A translator is torn between the deep-seated desire to express herself and the faithful duty to represent another. Perhaps, the translator’s despair in ...
The Visual Thesaurus
As I continued my hunt for the perfect title, I paid a visit to my profile over at RedRoom.com. Red Room is a great place to connect with authors, and my blog appears on my profile page over there as well as here on my website. Several people on Red Room offered title ideas for "the book formerly known as After the Storm," but what truly captivated me was one commenter's suggestion ...
Loving the shadows
I loved to talk to rolly-polly Rajeswari whenever I used to come to Ichapuram during the college vacation. I sat looking into her eyes on dusty evenings as she cut her tomatoes for the evening’s dinner . She did not love her husband who was such a fine husband, albeit advanced in years, and a fine printer . It was such an impossible situation , her husband being several years older than her ...
Pablo Neruda's Love Sonnet 19: A Translation
19Mientras la magna espuma de Isla Negra, la sal azul, el sol en las olas te mojan, yo miro los trabajos de la avispa empeñada en la miel de su universo. Va y viene equilibrando su recto y rubio vuelo como si deslizara de un alambre invisible la elegancia del baile, la sed de su cintura, y los asesinatos del aguijón maligno. De petróleo y naranja es su arco iris, busca como un avión entre la ...
