I have been away from the blog for a few days now – more on all that, I’m sure, at some later date when I have figured out how to talk about the latest discoveries of my life! Meanwhile, I wanted to share this aerial view of Sri Lanka. I had never . . .
Read MoreReflections at the dawn of the ‘Post-LTTE Moment’ by Malinda Seneviratne This is a momentous occasion for Sri Lanka and Sri Lankans, regardless of ideological persuasion and preferred Utopia. Whether or not, as some have (in my opinion injudiciously) predicted, the LTTE will revert to its guerrilla avatar, it is clear that . . .
Read MoreIn August of 2005, I met someone who would turn out to be my kindred soul, my brother from another life, and a friend unlike any other. It was my first year at the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, that place of much beauty, equal pain and a creative energy that all but . . .
Read MoreIn my purse, I carry a note which describes the clinical condition of a woman I knew. Tracy was not a good friend of mine in any real sense of the word; I did not share my life with her, not ask her for any help. For one, we moved in different . . .
Read MoreA few years ago I found myself in a packed theater in a small town in Maine. The Waterville Opera House is one of those gems that we want to keep close; complete with scrolled sides and ornately framed, curving proscenium, an orchestra pit, and sloped seating. Not to mention people with . . .
Read MoreWell, I don’t know if I have swine flu. Maybe the question is, how would anybody ever escape any viral virulence when all I see are germs – on the train, in the metro, public rest rooms (which I prefer to call public distress room!), and the head-rests of seats anywhere. The . . .
Read MoreI should have written this while I was still sneezing among the dogwood, tulips and cherry blossoms, but DC has a way of taking up all available space, time and mind and I have a way of dancing to the music… I was in the area for a multitude of reasons: community . . .
Read MoreI am rushing off to catch various modes of transport to head to Washington, DC, but I wanted to share this beautiful song that I heard this morning. It is a song called ‘It Wont Be Like This For a Long Time.‘ I guess these are the thoughts that come to mind . . .
Read MoreIn an article in the NY Observer, Leon Neyfakh poses this question: ‘Should Literary Novels Be More Like The Wire?’ First of all, let me say that I am a devotee of the now safely in TV history series, The Wire, a world that was made available to me through access to . . .
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Read MoreThe photographs coming out of the Summit of the Americas, to which Cuba may soon return, are heart-warming in more ways than one. The absence of a shifty eyed, inarticulate representative from the United States and the presence of a new president on whom all of the member states, as well as . . .
Read MoreIt is a congenital defect (or strength), of mine, that I feel compelled to offer myself up where I feel I could be of some use. I am still waiting to see how this plays out now that I have a book coming out and another yet to be finished, a book . . .
Read MoreI’ve been away from the blog for a few days on account of a last-minute rush to keep several fires going at the same time – the heart needs heat and sometimes that means more than one stove, apparently! Anyway, as I hopped on the Philly-NYC bolt bus for the sweet price . . .
Read MoreContinuing the discussion on Hair, I post below an unabridged, uncensored anonymous guest comment from a good friend: “Hair” opened on Broadway while I was in elementary school in New York City. It was a succes de scandale: naked women appeared in the finale (I heard at one of my parents’ parties) . . .
Read MoreAll of you who are in the writing world have probably either (a) read this yourself or (b) had it recommended to you by a friend and intend to get to it soon. By “this” I mean A.O. Scott’s tribute to the short story in the NYT yesterday, entitled, fittingly, ‘Brevity’s Pull.’ . . .
Read MoreSo everybody has heard, by now, that the Boston Globe was threatened with closure by its owner, the NYT Co. The demand is for the unions to agree to $20 million worth of concessions: Executives from the Times Co. and Globe made the demands Thursday morning in an approximately 90- minute meeting . . .
Read MoreI wasn’t able to write anything the last two days because I’ve been occupied with the business of countering misinformation on the political front. I won’t go into that in any great detail here, for now, since the day will soon be here when I must let that life seep through into . . .
Read MoreI am not sure how old I was when my older brothers and I, our lives unfolding in a still-quiet Sri Lanka, began singing “Good morning starshine, the earth says hello..you twinkle above us, we twinkle below…Good morning starshine, you lead us along…my love and me as we sing our early morning . . .
Read MoreSo, I knew this already, truly, I’m that much of a dorkish digger of obscure factoids. Today’s Daily Beast line up of the famous and their courses of undergraduate study featured the enigmatic Rahm Emanuel and the revelation that the White House Chief of Staff passed up the Joffrey Ballet to study . . .
Read MoreIs Facebook a democracy and can it, really, lead to world peace?
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