Memorial Day: A Poem
Sean MurphyUnanticipated clouds advance, shifting the weight of the world—or at least the measured objectives of so many compulsory affairs—nonplussed after all this time by their capacity to inspire, interrupt, or…
Donald Trump and Participation Trophy Politics
I’VE BEEN THINKING A lot?—?since the election and particularly during the past two weeks?—?about the cliché (typically, in personal experience, uttered by my right-leaning friends) involving our so-called “participation trophy”…
Borne Back Ceaselessly Into the Past: Steinbeck, Nostalgia, Empathy and Amtrak (Revisited)
WHEN I FIRST read John Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley: In Search of America I was not quite old enough to drive. Still, I felt I could appreciate his somewhat…
50 BULLET POINTS CONCERNING AMERICA’S GUN PSYCHOSIS
Let’s politicize these acts, if for no other reason because, in America, we politicize everything else. Of course it’s a mental health issue. For starters, the mental handicap of…
Borne Back Ceaselessly Into the Past: Steinbeck, Nostalgia, Empathy and Amtrak (Revisited)
(For the remainder of the month, I’ll be revisiting some personal favorites, all of which are available in my recently-released collection, MURPHY’S LAW VOL. ONE, which is available NOW!) WHEN I…
Sorry, Charlie: On Art and Extremism (Revisited)
OF COURSE RELIGION IS the problem. For anyone who, understandably, would say it’s a political issue and not a religious issue, I aver that so many of our political difficulties…
Alligator Lizards in the Air: In Search of the Sublimely Awful Lyric (Revisited)
Intravenus de Milo Spinal Tap album I can think of a lot of rock bands who have written some laughably awful lyrics. So can you. Part of rock and roll's…
Borne Back Ceaselessly Into the Past: Steinbeck, Nostalgia, Empathy and Amtrak (Revisited)
WHEN I FIRST read John Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley: In Search of America I was not quite old enough to drive. Still, I felt I could appreciate his somewhat elegiac…
Sorry, Charlie
i. OF COURSE RELIGION IS the problem. For anyone who, understandably, would say it’s a political issue and not a religious issue, I aver that so many of our…
Borne Back Ceaselessly Into the Past: Steinbeck, Nostalgia, Empathy and Amtrak*
i. WHEN I FIRST read John Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley: In Search of America I was not quite old enough to drive. Still, I felt I could appreciate his somewhat…