Ben, Author at Common Reader

Make It a Double, Robot

Language fails. Cecilia, however, does not. She mixes each cocktail in perfect proportions—never a little heavy on the booze, to loosen you up, or lightly, when your request slurs.

Uncategorized | Dispatches

Whenever we create structure and limitations, we are building ourselves a playground, a contained space in which it will be safe to play. That happens in an arena, a temple, a magic circle, a court of justice; at a temple; at a card table; on stage, on screen, on a tennis court.

Uncategorized | Dispatches

“We Just Changed, Got a Brand-New Funky President”¹: Teacher Shirley Chisholm Takes the Nation to School in 1972

By Gerald Early

Reading Shirley Chisholm’s 1973 book “The Good Fight” was something of a revelation for my students, as it offered not just an insider’s view of Black political thinking and organizing in the early 1970s but also a look at how a major institution like the Democratic Party operates and how difficult it is to mount what was in Chisholm’s case a true insurgent candidacy.

Arts & Letters | Dispatches

And Pioneering the Concert of the Future Is . . . ABBA??

By Jeannette Cooperman

What really triggered this project? For four decades, ABBA steadily refused to re-form, even when offered $1 billion in cash.

Uncategorized | Dispatches

There Is More Than One Way to Live a Beautiful Life

By Jeannette Cooperman

We love to personalize. We have our initials embroidered on towels that will fade and thin in a year. The idea of clothing custom-tailored to our bodies—unaffordably, by a human, or now, with computerized manufacturing—thrills us. So why not make our lives our own?

Uncategorized | Dispatches

Thanksgiving or the Ritual of Gratitude

By Gerald Early

Giving thanks, as Melanie Kirkpatrick reminds us, is an American preoccupation, a powerful religious and civic expression of our nation. Kirkpatrick’s fear is that the left’s attempt to banish gratitude unravels our country by denying it any dimension of humanity except its quest for power.

Reviews

Gratitude Comes Hard to Us

By Jeannette Cooperman

It makes sense that here, in the land of self-improvement, we should grant gratitude its own (albeit politically confused, deceptive, and tainted) holiday. But I suspect we also need Thanksgiving because we are so bad at it.

Arts & Letters | Uncategorized | Dispatches

From Sugar to Shit

By Jeannette Cooperman

Casinos used to buy direct mail lists that identified people with “unquenchable appetites for all forms of gambling.” Now, some manage to buy data for the ATMs on site, and all have computerized loyalty cards that show just when and for how long each customer plays, how much they bet, what times of day they visit, how often they hit that Spin or Deal button.

Uncategorized | Dispatches

A Long and Rambling Letter to My Dead Mother

By Jeannette Cooperman

Growing up, I felt wretchedly sorry for you. Widowed young, with an eight-month-old baby and no work you loved. Years as a secretary, flattering bosses and cleaning up their messes for chump change. But you left at five on the dot and never looked back, never brought work home except to tell funny stories, and then we played and talked.

Uncategorized | Dispatches

What Gloria Naylor and Toni Morrison Have Taught Me about Black Love

By Crystal S. Rudds

I appreciate that marriage does not have to be an empty receptacle for property exchange and reproduction. I also appreciate that Gloria Naylor and Toni Morrison believed in love. I have seen marriages in their literature that I recognize: troubled marriages, shallow marriages, commitments based more on double incomes than courtship, relationships aging into dry and empty nests. Marriage is not salvation, or a goal.

Essays