Alan Arkin & American Artistry
Sean MurphyWhen it rains, it pours, so of course news breaks that the beloved, completely irreplaceable Alan Arkin has left us earthlings behind for better adventures. Before he became the always-lovable…
WHAT WRITERS TALK ABOUT WHEN WE TALK ABOUT PERSEVERANCE
The first rule of writing is to understand, and eventually embrace the fact that there are no rules. There are also no short-cuts. (Sorry, posers.) Writing, like life, is ultimately…
Frederic Forrest: RIP, Chef
If you're a fan of Francis Ford Coppola, you are familiar with Frederic Forrest. If you're an ardent fan of Francis Ford Coppola, you appreciate the rare gifts Frederic Forrest…
6/26/87: Full Metal Jacket
Thanks to the remarkable team at All The Right Movies (a crucial Twitter follow if you don't already do so), I am reminded that one of the great, harrowing films…
Original Poem: Sustenance
It's an honor, every time, to have any literary magazine accept your work, and it's an extra thrill when you place work suitable for a certain journal. I'm so happy…
James Gandolfini: Ten Years Gone
Man. Ten years ago, today (and it seemed an intolerably premature death to me, at 43; now that I'm older than he was (51!), it really stings on so many…
A Story about Storytelling
What are you going to do, teach? This was the question. It’s what everyone asked, what everyone thought, how everyone assumed things worked: you get a degree in the Humanities and…
Cormac McCarthy: A Hero for Those in Need of Anti-Heroes
Cormac McCarthy was, like another uber-masculine (albeit polar opposite, aesthetically) writer of the old school, Philip Roth (more on him, here), an artist who did the work. Shunning the spotlight, apparently…
AI Will Not Replace Art
"Etonne-moi!" --Serge Diaghilev, to Jean Cocteau Adam Gopnik, the prolific and brilliant writer whose work has appeared in The New Yorker for several decades, has a timely piece in The New York Times that…
1993 + 30 = Saturn (or, a Sun Ra Sampler)
Sun Ra's music sounds like it was intercepted from another world. Thirty years ago, today, Herman Poole Blount, aka Sonny Blount, aka Le Sony'r Ra, aka SUN RA, left these…