Saw a very good Howard Zinn ('People's History of the United States') essay yesterday about how real social change happens. A hint: it doesn't come from the top down.

From 'The Progressive' (progressive.org).
Election Madness

By Howard Zinn, March 2008 Issue
There’s a man in Florida who has been writing to me for years (ten pages, handwritten) ( Read more... )

The moon changes the night here at MacDowell. During the new moon it was so dark, I couldn’t see five feet in front of me, even with a clear sky (the surprise of seeing constellations). Even the merest slash of crescent moon tinged the night blue and by half-moon I could walk easily, the moonlight off the snowpack illuminating my steps. In the city ( Read more... )

I live in the city and I love it - the noise, the crowds, walking out of my apartment and running into friends on the street. But I'm spending eight weeks in rural New Hampshire and it has pleasures of its own. It's nice not to be woken up at five a.m. by demented bakers screaming in Polish. Not to have to watch the slimy grit of city off my face ( Read more... )

I'm up at an artists colony in NH. I was here three years ago and was able to enjoy sledding for the first time since I was in my twenties. There's a steep hill nearby so after the first snow, I took a colony sled up there at 2 a.m.  First runs down the hill. The snow burning on my face until it melts off.  Feet crunching through snow pack over a ( Read more... )

Apparently, they've been wrestling with this one for the past five years.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Federal Communications Commission has proposed a $1.4 million fine against 52 ABC Television Network stations over a 2003 broadcast of cop drama NYPD Blue.

The fine is for a scene where a boy surprises a woman as she prepares to take a shower. The ( Read more... )

A friend sent me this article about a Greenpoint fire in 1994. The descriptions of the neighborhood astonished me. It's hard to believe that so much could have changed so quickly. From a working-class neighborhood of 'smoky factories' the area is can now be better described as 'one where working-class people can't afford to live.' If I had known it ( Read more... )

'But the fact is this: apart from a few old men who dip their pens in Eau de Cologne and little dandies who write like butchers, all writers have to sweat. That's due to the nature of the Word: one speaks in one's own language, one writes in a foreign language.'
                   - Sartre: Les Mots

Les Mots is, to my mind, one of the great pieces ( Read more... )

I read Cortazar's 'Hopscotch' at 24 and found it mediocre, standard Modernism-lite. A few years later, I sat in on a girlfriend's Latin American lit class in Paris. The teacher touted 'Hopscotch' over 'One Hundred Years of Solitude.' I called her on it and she grew defensive (I think she'd been Cortazar's lover ( Read more... )

Here's a story about the last days of Vilcabamba, the jungle capital of the Incas, that is related to my new book.

The presence of priests in the suburbs of Vilcabamba brought conflict. One priest attempted to burn a sacred rock where the Incas celebrated their rituals and was ejected from the kingdom. Then, when Titu Cusi became seriously ill with ( Read more... )

The recent sports scandals regarding HGH and steroids reveal the hypocrisy of the media as much as they do anything else. Of course, you would take HGH to speed recovery time from an injury if you were a professional athlete with millions of dollars on the line. It was only banned from baseball in 2005 and it's still impossible to detect with tests ( Read more... )