Recent Blog Posts
Is The Da Vinci Code Cracked - Or Just the People Who Believe It
on Apr 3, 2006 in Books and Movies Michael BrescianiIn Australia it is reported that people have purchased tickets for the soon to be released movie "The Da Vinci Code" directed by Ron Howard as much as eight weeks in advance of the films release. And we thought Star Wars fr...
Locked-in Syndrome
on May 2, 2008 in Books and Movies Prisons and Prisoners American prisons Henri Charriere Julian Schnabel prisoners The Diving Bell and the Butterfly Tom Waits Conjunction of events at the mailbox yesterday afternoon: I received a remarkable letter from a prisoner I’ve known for some years who is 42 and locked-in (in what is called Administrative Segregation or Ad Seg–spends his life literally...
Race. Part 1.
on May 3, 2008 in Books and Movies Politics What does it mean? Black people Black women Charisse Jones Kumea Shorter-Gooden race race relations racism Shifting White people I’ve tried to make my life my statement about race, even though we’ve known since W.E.B. DuBois said it in 1914 that scientifically “race” doesn’t exist. Race is not inscribed in our genes, any more than “class...
Losing my bearings
on May 12, 2008 in Books and Movies Chris Virden Manko Seth What does it mean? When I chose to retire and move to Portland, I thought I knew, however dimly, what I was doing. I wanted to write full-time. I wanted to be done grading papers written by nineteen-year-olds who didn’t want to write them. I was worn out by se...
Bringing it on home
on May 14, 2008 in Books and Movies Manko Seth What does it mean? Aaron Neville identity How do other people know who they are? If you know who your father was, does it make a difference in who you think you are? Where is “home”? I’ve been playing Aaron Neville’s latest CD, Bring It On Home, and it calls me back...