Archive for the ‘Categories’ Category
Manifesto of Plugdinism
There is a state of excitement about experiencing and/or creating art — literary, visual, musical, or cinematic — that I refer to as being “plugged in.” In this state, which approaches the spiritual, one is moved equally by individual works themselves and by the very fact and possibility of exploration and discovery, present and future. [...]
Love for Sale is now an ebook
Announcing that Love for Sale and Other Essays, my nonfiction collection exploring books, race, film, painting, jazz, love, friendship, and more, is now an ebook! Click HERE to order Love for Sale as an ebook and HERE to get it in paperback! Click HERE to read Bob Cashill’s review of the book on popdose.com. And [...]
Three Contemporary African-American Poets, or, The Dunce Steps Out
A while back, in a post called “Books for My Daughter,” I presented a list of what I considered essential reading and asked for suggestions of works to add to it. There were quite a few suggestions — good ones — leading one astute reader to comment, “This is, in the end, a list for [...]
Love for Sale and Other Essays
My new book, Love for Sale and Other Essays, has won the Autumn House Press nonfiction prize and is now available online! Click HERE to purchase your copy on amazon.com. Love for Sale includes personal essays as well as musings on race and the general problem of being human. Best of all, it revels in the connections [...]
The Cure for the Post-Holiday Blues
It’s not exactly breaking news that the holiday season has gotten longer, or, to put it more accurately, that we have begun celebrating earlier. In stores, Christmas decorations are seen and carols heard well before Thanksgiving, a holiday that has been reduced to the last hurdle before the start of the great shopping frenzy. As [...]
Keeping Up with the Joneses: A True Story
The moral of what I’m about to tell you is . . . well, maybe you can help me out there. I’m not sure myself. Many years ago I wrote a short story, “Judgment,” about an interracial romance on a college campus. Terry McMillan published it in her anthology of black fiction, Breaking Ice. The [...]
Books for My Daughter
Recently my older daughter was home for college break and asked me to put together a list of literary classics for her; an acting major, she was concerned that she would miss important books in the normal course of things. Touched and flattered, I came up with the following list. I aimed for the list to be both [...]
The Two Mark Harrises
I recently picked up two books by different authors with the same name. The works of the first Mark Harris (1922–2007) include the baseball novel Bang the Drum Slowly and the novel I just read, Wake Up, Stupid. I was interested in that book because an article I read years ago — about something else entirely — mentioned [...]
Funny Books: Snappers, Commitments, and Clockwork Oranges
When I was in college, an unbelievably long time ago, I saw Stanley Kubrick’s film A Clockwork Orange. It is one of the two most disturbing things I’ve ever watched (the other being Deliverance), and not coincidentally, it’s only now that I’ve gotten around to reading the Anthony Burgess novel that inspired it. That was [...]
Mt. Rushmore
I call this painting “Mt. Rushmore.” I have brought my limited skill and unlimited zeal to an attempt to portray seven figures who have meant a lot to me at various stages of my life. You can click on it for a better view. Please note that (a) the quotes are not above the appropriate [...]
