Ben, Author at Common Reader

Magic Mushrooms

We already knew to call psilocybin the magic mushroom, because it brings visions of serenity and oneness. If other fungi help us rinse away the toxins and find our balance again, we will have to acknowledge their magic, too.

Uncategorized | Dispatches

On the Other Side of the Glass

By Jeannette Cooperman

Chimpanzees have been bred for lab research, infected with HIV, sent into outer space. They are vulnerable to many of the same illnesses we are, including Alzheimer’s. They also experience many of the same emotions

Uncategorized | Dispatches

House of Miles (Davis)

By Jeannette Cooperman

You see it the minute you walk into the House of Miles: his eyes, glowing light, stare back at you from a huge black-and-white photo, the one where he wears a sleeveless shirt and has his arms raised, maybe after one of the boxing workouts that helped his breath control. He learned to box right here.

Uncategorized | Dispatches

Why So Many Robots Are White

By Jeannette Cooperman

Have you ever noticed how often robots themselves are white? Or how often AI researchers and venture capitalists are White males? Their power is slipping away. They need a new planet, fresh genius, a way to be invulnerable.And we are all their guinea pigs.

Uncategorized | Dispatches

Why Sports Journalism Is Boring and Cruel

By Jeannette Cooperman

Sports writing can be brilliant; it is one of the most exciting forms, full of suspense and rich with lore. Yet most sports reporting winds up formulaic and pedestrian.

Uncategorized | Dispatches

Proof of the Soul?

By Jeannette Cooperman

It is in marveling at transcendent wonders, experiences that lift us out of time and space, that our bodies relax into both physical and spiritual health.

Uncategorized | Dispatches

The Rise and Fall of Robert Kennedy’s Mission to Save America

By Gerald Early

Rising Justice is a magisterial book by a master historian, an epic sweep of Robert Kennedy and his time as a public figure. It is not a standard biography, but it has the narrative drive of a good biography. There is precious little here about Kennedy as a father, a husband, a son, just a few bits. Much testimony but little gossip. Yet one learns a great deal about Robert Kennedy person as well as Robert Kennedy the politician.

Reviews

Comics and Black America

By Clifford Thompson

Comic Art and African Americans

Essays

The Black Picture Show

By Clifford Thompson

Two new books, in many ways vastly different, take on the history of Blacks in American comics—one discussing the work of more celebrated cartoonists of the last century or so, the other focusing on previously hidden figures.

Reviews

Hardboiled! Oversexed! And Shoddily Written!

By Zachary Manditch-Prottas

Sticking it to The Man does not consider just any pulp fiction books; these are the stories of folks who have had enough of their designation as low and choose to rise up and challenge “the man” whose standards cast them down.

Reviews