Archive for May 2023
Multiple choices
by David Benjamin “What I tell kids is, Don’t get mad, get even. Don’t spend time waving signs or carrying petitions around the neighborhood. Instead, run, don’t walk, to the nearest non-school library or to the local bookstore and get whatever it was that they banned. Read whatever they’re trying to keep out of your…
Read MoreBe clever, kid, but not …
by David Benjamin While reading one of Louis Bayard’s historical mysteries, The Pale Blue Eye, I paused to highlight a line and, as I did so, thought about the writer’s ability (or inability) to weave imagery, sound and sensation into a linear narrative, ideally without divertting the story’s flow. Bayard’s line reads, “Her petticoats always……
Read MoreSingin’ the bourgeois blues
by David Benjamin “Lawd, in the bourgeois town, ooh the bourgeois town,/ I got the bourgeois blues, gonna spread the news aroun’./ Me and Marthy we was standin’ upstairs,/ Heard a white man say, ‘Don’t want no niggers up there … ” — Huddy Ledbetter MADISON, Wis.—It’s instructive to regard politics, especially nowadays but—really—forever,…
Read MoreI want my flag back, and so does Richard Stanz
by David Benjamin “I shuddered to think that while we wanted that flag dragged into the mud and sullied beyond repair, we also wanted it pristine, its white stripes, summer cloud white. Watching it wave in the breeze of a distance made us nearly choke with emotion. It lifted us up with its promise and…
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