Posts by David Benjamin
Le chat qui se faufile dans chez nous
by David Benjamin “When it rains in Paris, it bleeds into swift little gutters. You can see your reflection over its mercury embryo.” ― Sneha Subramanian Kanta PARIS — An apartment in Paris is like Nietzsche’s abyss. It looks into you, senses your weaknesses and spoils for its chance to pounce. Twenty-five-odd years ago, in…
Read MoreA simpler time? Yeah, when?
by David Benjamin “… You can’t go back home to your family—to a young man’s dream of fame and glory, to the country cottage away from strife and conflict, to the father you have lost, to the old forms and systems of things which seemed everlasting but are changing all the time…” —Thomas Wolfe…
Read MoreThe atomic mother-in-law
by David Benjamin “… I couldn’t help anyone because I… was seriously injured. My entire face and both of my hands were burnt. I went home to Midori-machi stepping over the bodies of the injured and the dead. They looked like forgotten baggage…” —Woman quoted in The Witness of Those Two Days: Hiroshima &…
Read MoreThe Midwest: American Literature’s Diaspora
This issue of Write Away examines a quandary: Why is there a Southern school of literature, but no equivalent Midwestern pantheon? It is arguable that the heartland has produced more great storytellers than any region in America. Why doesn’t the midwest get any respect? The Midwest: American Literature’s Diaspora Among a hundred threads of American……
Read MoreMy big sister’s radio
by David Benjamin “… So many deejays so far away/ You oughta heard the records they would play/ On that little transistor, my big sister’s radio/ My big sister’s transistor radio had a song for my heart and a song for my soul/ One for my heartaches and one for my fears…” —Tommy Castro…
Read More“I’m hip”
by David Benjamin “I copped a gig at Minton’s and one night Alfred Lions came in to dig us. He said we gassed him, but we were too far out for the people …” — Babs Gonzalez MADISON, Wis. — Since “woke” horned its way into the vernacular a few years ago, I’ve struggled…
Read MoreThe Ember of Anger
The Ember of Anger When I was still muddling with my prose in high school, there was a big trend in the literary world for the sort of writer referred to as the “angry young man.” (Note that no market existed whatsoever for “angry young women.” The closest I might possibly cite in those days……
Read MoreThe machine-gun in the cloister
by David Benjamin “… Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness. Defenceless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants are driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is called pacification…” — George Orwell, Politics and the English…
Read MoreComputer? … Computer! … COMPUTER!
by David Benjamin “The more complex the mind, the greater the need for the simplicity of play.” — Capt. James T. Kirk MADISON, Wis. — All through my grade-school years, a Friday afternoon tabloid called The Weekly Reader was every kid’s gateway to a golden tomorrow. In its inky newsprint pages were unveiled breathtaking technological…
Read MoreThe Elements of Character
As a young writer, a dilemma that troubled me was characters. I was busily writing sketches populated by imaginary people. But I wondered, are these guys, and girls, characters? Had I “developed” them, or did they just pop into my head, like visions of Milky Way bars and the Playmate of the Month? Since then,……
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