1 Is it wrong to appreciate works created by artists who have done bad things? These days the quandary arises around #MeToo transgressions, but it has been around for as long as there has been art. The question comes to my mind in connection with a
Literature
Must Politics Dictate Art?
I’ve just finished reading the 2018 edition of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s venerable Best American Short Stories (BASS), and I feel I’ve been brought up to date with my politics, above all, the political grievances I ought to feel. But should
Who Said That?
Did Mark Twain say, “The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why”? The quotation was included one morning in a post to a list for writers that I belong to. A man I’ll call Pangloss, after the
Layers
Note: A revised version of an essay I posted on July 4, 2016 after my wife and I traveled to Italy. Is it lack of imagination that makes us come to imagined places, not just stay at home? —Elizabeth Bishop, “Questions of Travel” I concluded the
Green-Wood
That Friday afternoon last month, a Green-Wood Cemetery employee named Katie escorted Laura and me as we toured options for our future remains. We walked from buildings to open areas with ponds and vistas, on to another building, and then to yet
Twilight of a Stock Broker
Finally a novel has been given mainstream publication that has a principal blind character and is written by a blind author. Edward Hoagland’s In the Country of the Blind appeared late last year, but became available in audio only recently. Because I