Now that I have shed the self-consciousness of childhood’s fierce inner life and realized I am not the only one who cherishes books and I do not have to protect them single-handedly against bubblegum and mocking boys . . . my heart has softened toward the bookmobile.
Photo by John Griswold
Of course a city garbage truck—big, dangerous, smelly—was the big hit at the local Touch a Truck event today, and both kids and parents enthused over it. My younger son had volunteered to help staff the event, and it was one of our first…
Having read stories of heroes and martyrs when we were kids, we take it on faith that people should be willing to die for their beliefs. That, or we dismiss suicidal terrorists as deluded, brainwashed. But have we looked inside the brains of extremists to see what might have been happening when they made their noble or mad choices?
Photo by John Griswold
“How far, in any case, must one go back
to find the beginning?”
—WG Sebald, After Nature
I know someone who used to say, at key life-moments: I’m going to just [do this one thing], and we’ll see what happens. If you looked…
Stifano says he wanted "La Spigolatrice," “to represent an ideal of a woman, evoke her pride, the awakening of a conscience, all in a moment of great pathos.” He cheerfully admits that he would have preferred to sculpt her nude but was not allowed.
For thirty-three years, until his death on November 8, 1999, trumpet player Lester Bowie was the face of the Art Ensemble, playing trumpet at center stage while wearing the white laboratory coat that marked him as the sound scientist in charge of the band’s musical experiments.
Padura has won more than two dozen international awards, the last, the Princess of Asturias prize. On that occasion, he wore a Cuban guayabera and held a baseball when he went up to the podium. First loves never die.
Novels, news, plays, debates, speeches, texts, films, podcasts, instructions—we move through life on a conveyor belt of words. Yet the most powerful are those that cannot be uttered.
Photo of an exhibit in the museum, by John Griswold
Ms. Charlotte Davis wanted to show me everything.
I was standing on the porch of the log cabin next to the museum, and when I turned she had appeared on the steps, an older local lady with tight…
The first Davis movie I ever saw was "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane" in about 1963 or 1964 when it was first telecast. I must have been eleven or twelve, and the film scared the heck out of me.