Forever Never Changes: Remembering Arthur Lee (Ten Years Later)
Sean MurphyArthur Lee died ten years ago today (August 3, 2006). I not only am keen to remember --and celebrate-- his life and work, I also appreciate the fact that the piece…
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…
My First Time (Revisited)
It was my great pleasure to guest-post at The Quivering Pen, a fantastic site for writers (and readers) curated by David Abrams (himself an excellent reader and writer: check him…
Some Day A Real Rain Will Come: What Travis Bickle Can –And Cannot– Tell Us About Tucson (Revisited)
Voices In Our Heads You talking to me? It is the pivotal scene in Scorsese’s Taxi Driver and it remains one of the seminal moments in movie history. Not so…
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…
In Defense of Stephen King (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!) FACT: STEPHEN…
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…
What We Talk About When We Talk About Sex (In Fiction)
WRITING ABOUT SEX is like engaging in sex: it’s hard. Or, it should be. It’s that time of year again, where we can count on three things: shopping-related stress during…
My Most Embarrassing Thanksgiving Memory? (Revisited)
Question: What was your most embarrassing Thanksgiving moment ever? Answer: I’ve got nothing here. I mean, I was raised in an Irish-Italian Catholic household so there were two things we…