C.P. Cavafy died in the ancient city of Alexandria, Egypt at the age of 70ty in 1933.  You don't have to know anything about poetry or even be interested in it to be fascinated by his story.  He died in almost total obscurity.  Known to very few even in his… Read full post »

The old house is gone,  the city destroyed, can you see it, no?  Hey, it's ancient Mesopotamia, thieves digging in the ruins, what hasn't fallen ready to fall.

I wake up cold and dreaming about the fruit cellar and the girls who lived nearby, not necessarily in that order.

The girls li… Read full post »

1)  The Dems have little notion of loyalty.  I'm speaking as much of the constituency as the pols.  It's the anarchistic streak in them.  They mistake it for independence, not understanding the nature of progressive legislation is incrementalism, not ideological purity. … Read full post »

    Bob: I agree I failed in my assignment to "tell a tale of truimph that demonstrates careful planing and sly ingenuity."  I told the tale of triumph, but not the careful planning...part.

     It 's due to not having a hell of a lot to tell, but that wou… Read full post »

     How to interpret the midterms without falling into the ideological traps?

     That's the question, especially since a sucker is born every minute  and becoming one of them is not an aspiration.  It isn't enough to say historically the midterms a… Read full post »

Two parts to the story: Avigdor Lieberman has declared his ultra-nationionalist agenda more clearly, moving to the right of Netanyahu to garner the paranoid vote, and Ahmadinejad has now travelled to Lebanon for the first time since he was elected in 2005 to rally the Herzbollah troops and the Shite… Read full post »

     Anybody who was there will never forget the day Richard Marner punched Sister Francis in the face.  It was the seventh grade.  He knocked off her black and white bonnet, revealing her nearly bald head and floppy ears.

     The entire class gasped… Read full post »

     It's foolish to contend with the prevailing wisdom: all politics are local, but these midterms hold special qualities:  a) they are in the midst or follow the greatest recession since the great depression, depending on your point of view, b) they follow th… Read full post »

I worked for awhile at a famous old bar in New York City.  I can't say the name and won't confirm it if you guess right.  I still have friends who work there for the scumbag who owns the place.

While I was there the owner died, the last of a… Read full post »

The movie GET LOW won't win an Oscar.  A year from now it will largely be forgotten by all but a few aficianados.  It's what Hollywood calls a "small movie" about real people and how "we" live.  It's box office draw won't put it in the top ten, twenty, or fifty for… Read full post »

I remember driving out to Brooklyn in the little yellow Ford Fiesta.

Something landed on the rear window and busted the glass.  I heard of a shop under the highway that sells them used.  I even had the new used glass installed and feel good about it.

It's the years when my da… Read full post »

Let's see if I have the facts straight:  a woman hired as a "correspondent" by the Daily Show gives an interview for the website Jezebel.com.  The actress Olivia Munn is said to describe the show as "a boys club where women's contributions are often ignored and dismissed."  (That's a q… Read full post »

Walter Cronkite had a series on Sunday called: "A World at War," if I remember correctly.  I'd watch it with my dad, but occasionally slip downstairs to watch it with my grandfather.

Gramps  lay totally  supine on his "divan" his head in a cloud of blue pipe smoke watching the twelve… Read full post »

Life is just a bowl of cherries, don't take it serious, it's too delirious

^{Jimmy Durante, as often sung by my mother}

When dad died,  mother retired six months later and moved into their summer house in Northwestern Michigan, about 50ty miles South of the Upper Penninsula.  The plan had been… Read full post »

David Bromwich is Sterling Professor of English at Yale University.  He's written many books of literary criticism and writes often for publications such as THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS and the LONDON REVIEW OF BOOKS on political topics.  The following blog is based on his article in the Ma… Read full post »

I saw them that day

the three sisters from Old Detroit

just as it was on a cold morning on their way to school.

We were in Florida for Easter

walking in line down the sidewalk on the way to the family dinner.

The three of them shoulder to shoulder again… Read full post »

I was born in the "first wave," of boomers--the same year the boys started to get off the boats after the big war.  Dad was a vet, a bona fide member of the "greatest generation."  While he didn't see combat, he served with honor.  That was the primary credential.  Nobody knew… Read full post »

The response of the Obama administration following the confrontation with Vice President Biden during his first trip to Israel was not a fluke.

Neither was the testimony by General David H. Petraeus linking events in the Middle East with the "hostile environment" met by the US around the world.&… Read full post »

My father had a younger brother I'll call Al.  His actual name was much more distinctive, but I'll leave it at that.

Al was an anomaly in the family.  He was tall, maybe six two or three.  My dad was maybe five-six.  Nobody knew where the gene came from--in those days most… Read full post »

     When I was a boy during the fierce Michigan winters, I looked out my bedroom window when I got up at seven.  The window glass was covered in frost, but I could see below the empty rectangular space in the snow where my grandparents parked their car.  They'd left for… Read full post »

If anybody thinks Netanyahu didn't know or at least suspect members of his coalition were going to start building the settlements in East Jerusalem, or if those who gave the orders didn't do so purposely at the time of Biden's visit, they haven't been paying attention to Israel for a long t… Read full post »

     I had a stop over yesterday at the airport in Atlanta and remember it was the first airport I ever flew into.  It was with my aunt Barbara, herself a flight attendant, on a trip to Miami over fifty years ago.  I recall seeing a sign on a bathroom door "Colored… Read full post »

I heard last week with considerable pleasure that Camille Paglia was "gone" from Salon.com.  I'd followed Ms. Paglia closely during the Presidential campaign with some initial agreement, then confusion, disbelief, repugnance, and eventually complete disinterest.

Alas, I learned earlier this week… Read full post »

What you love well remains, the rest is dross.  E. Pound 

You never heard of him, probably, unless you're a writer and had the  good fortune.

I met Ken in a Little Red School House at the bottom of a hill on the campus of Western Michigan University.  Ken brought in a… Read full post »

Rain in New York City

(Not a Weather Report)

I remember the rain the first time--vaguely.  During the months after we arrived from Kalamazoo.  The days fast and full, so much to see and learn, so little time to ourselves.

That morning, the windows didn't light up on East 6th Street. … Read full post »