For My Mother, on Her 80th Birthday
Sean Murphyi. August 2002 – August 2023 (August 23, 1943 - August 23, 2023) Twenty-one years, and on what would be her 80th birthday. I’m of course of a certain age…
1455 PRESENTS: A CONVERSATION WITH BEN PURKERT, AUTHOR OF ‘THE MEN CAN’T BE SAVED’
Writers strikes. Fear and Loathing of all-things-AI. Cutbacks within the industry and academia. One could be forgiven for assuming it’s all bad news all the time, so when a genuine feel-good story unfolds within…
8/15/79: Apocalypse Now
Released in theaters on this date, 44 years ago. Anyone out there who has not seen this movie? Anyone who hasn't seen it several times? Like most masterpieces, nothing can…
Robbie Robertson: The Man in the Band
When it comes to The Band, I've always been inflexible in my opinion that their best work was entirely a team effort, the sum greater than the considerable brilliance of…
Be at Peace, Sweet Sinéad
She was brave. She was beautiful. She was brilliant. We all found our lives enriched thanks to her gift and, as is so often the case with our most fragile…
The Struggle of Memory against Forgetting: Why Milan Kundera Matters
i. Kundera almost killed me, still in my creative cradle, a writer needing nourishment. He arrived in my life too early. As a reader, it wasn’t soon enough, as what…
Original Poem: ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY, 1967: MUHAMMAD ALI REFUSES ARMY INDUCTION*
My thanks to Words & Sports Quarterly for publishing my poem about how America handled Muhammad Ali and his (spiritually & politically astute, prescient) conscientious objection to the Vietnam war.…
Original Poem: The Unsatisfactory Suicide Note
Four summers ago, almost to the day, a friend took his life, and his life partner posted his farewell note. This situation was awful enough, on so many obvious levels,…
Original Poem: On This Day in History, 4877 B.C.: Universe is created, according to Kepler.*
It's always a fresh thrill to see one's work find the right publisher, and I've been fortunate to have my work published by Exterminating Angel Press many times. With gratitude,…
Jim Morrison: Still Hot, Still Sexy, Still Dead
Jim Morrison took his last bath on July 3, 1971 in Paris. R.I.P. Lizard King. (I wrote, in what most normal people would consider painful detail, about The Doors in…