At this point, just about everyone has at least heard of Ta-Nehisi Coates. His second book, Between the World and Me, won the 2015 National Book Award. Written as a letter to his teen-aged son, BTWAM has sold 1.5 million copies in 19 languages. He won a MacArthur “genius” award. His writing drew comparison to James Baldwin from no […]
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Exposition. Rising action. Resolution. That’s the standard structure of the 3-act arc in theatre, movies, opera, lit, &c. Between each act, there is the interlude known as entr’acte (in Italian, intermezzo; en Espanol, intermedio). It’s a time to hit the head, grab a bag of kettle corn. Or maybe just sit and reflect. It’s not often that we […]
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Woke up this morning, poured a cuppa, and opened the facebook machine. Right there at the top, a photo of the Fox Theater marquee touting the 70th birthday celebration for Colonel Bruce Hampton, Ret. Made me happy to know that so many amazing people -musicians and fans – had filled the Fabulous Fox to honor […]
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This morning, The Bitter Southerner began their annual membership drive. I command you to click through and offer whatever support you can. Most of you know that for most of June, 2014, I was in a hospital bed, laid up like a beached whale and experiencing the most delightful and disturbing episodes of hallucination and dementia. And […]
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My Dearest Stanwyck, I sit down in near exhaustion to write these few lines in between the grueling marches of the Knoxville Big Ears campaign. My weary feet cover many miles each day so as to position myself advantageously in front of the august purveyors of the Euterpean muse, many of whom invoke Polyhymnia, Terpsichore, […]
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It’s not hard to find examples of politicians exploiting tragedy for cheap emotional gain. But it’s hard to imagine a more cynical episode than the stunt trump pulled last night during his congressional address. On January 28, just a week into the trump reign, our Commander in Chief green lighted a military raid in Yemen. […]
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Like so many of my friends and allies these days, I wake up every morning with one thought at the front of my mind: What fresh hell will Trump bring today? Maybe it will be careless antagonism of one of our long-standing international allies. We have always been at war with Australia! Bad hombres! Maybe […]
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After an outpouring of reader demand, The Writer is back with My Favorite World, a (purportedly) once-weekly feature that highlights some things that make this my favorite world. I had stopped posting MFW after week 37 because it seemed to be not so popular. However, the application of true cash money attached to a request to […]
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Friday, January 20, 2017, Inauguration Day, was one of the hardest days of my life. I felt, at turns, crushing despair and overwhelming nausea, mingled with a steady stream of red-hot rage at the people who brought us to this sorry pass. Many friends refused to watch. I would not have missed it for the world. […]
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Hello legions. It’s been a while. Today marks a transition. Obama to Trump. This is a damnably bitter pill to swallow. I barely slept last night. When I did sleep, I dreamt of a three-headed beast terrorizing me and my family. A little too on the nose, really. Whaddyagonnado? Here’s a mild palliative, a little something […]
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