BY MARLEEN S. BARR I could only look at the Will Smith meltdown from the point of view of that earlier Will, because Shakespeare has so many characters who precipitate a steep and stunning downfall: Macbeth, Lear, Othello, Hamlet, Shylock. The title of Smith’s movie, in which he plays the father of Venus and Serena…
POSTED BY HANK REICHMAN Responding to the AAUP’s statement opposing Florida’s “viewpoint diversity” legislation, a colleague teaching at a major research university sent me this poem. The would-be poet wishes to remain anonymous; something about preserving dignity. This year marks the 25th annual April celebration of National Poetry Month, so I thought it worth posting. …
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH Here is an extraordinary performance of ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’ by the brave men and women from NHS in honor of the Llandudno’s Venu Cymru, which has been turned into a temporary coronavirus hospital. During this process, the facility has been renamed to Ysbyty Enfys, which is Welsh for Rainbow Hospital,…
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH In honor of World Book and Copyright Day, celebrated yesterday, the following books are available for free download 11:59 p.m. Pacific PT: The selection of titles for this celebration has become an annual event. The books are available for download at https://www.amazon.com/article/read-the-world-2020. Publishing Perspectives [https://publishingperspectives.com/] has provided the following concise overviews…
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH As musicians and other performing artists cope with the abrupt interruption of their professional lives, clips of bands and orchestras performing together while apart have become, delightfully, much more commonplace. But this video, celebrating the 50th anniversary of the recording of The Band’s signature song, “The Weight,” was released last September,…
BY MARTIN KICH In this series, I have highlighted headlines that are cleverly expressed, making use of puns, irony, figurative language, or unexpected word choices to grab a reader’s attention. Not surprisingly, the Trump administration has so unabashedly flouted all sorts of political conventions that headline writers have felt freer to write headlines that during…
BY MARTIN KICH Business Insider reports: Many citizens and businesses around China have reportedly been forbidden to celebrate or put up decorations for Christmas this year. Local authorities appear to be following President Xi Jinping’s burgeoning war against religion and what it considers foreign influences. China’s Communist Party is officially atheist and is increasingly clamping…
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH On the day before Thanksgiving, the poem featured in the Poem-a-Day newsletter of the Academy of American Poets was Sawako Nakayasu’s prose poem “Deflated Rubber Turkey.” This wonderfully light and yet riddle-like poem is available at: https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/deflated-rubber-turkey?utm. Sawako Nakayasu is an Assistant Professor of Literary Arts at Brown University. She is…
BY HANK REICHMAN “Union Maid,” written in 1940 by the great folk singer Woody Guthrie, is one of the classic anthems of the American labor movement. Pete Seeger, who would help make the song famous as a member of the Almanac Singers, wrote of its creation: I’m proud to say I was present when ‘Union…
BY HANK REICHMAN Charlie Kirk is the twenty-something founder of the right-wing “student group” Turning Point USA, sponsor of the notorious Professor Watchlist. Kirk’s group is so nutso that even the Charles Koch Foundation and the Young America’s Foundation have turned against it. Sarah Ruger, director of Free Speech Initiatives for the Charles Koch Institute,…