Great art resonates, across genre and form, locale and era. The ripples it creates reverberate in ways sometime unseen and take the art into all corners of the culture and human experience.

Even in this annual time of harvest and hauntings we find a pair of monumental literary works etched… Read full post »

I was raised under the glaring light of the Lord so of course I was drawn to the darkness.

I can’t even remember when my youthful fascination with the strange world of goblins and ghouls began but considering my family was steeped in the supernatural beliefs of fundamentalist Christianity,… Read full post »

I'm evidently in the vast minority. 

When I first saw Charlie Kaufman's "Synecdoche, New York" many months back, I loved it. Little surprise considering not only its cast but also the affinity I have for Kaufman's previous work. 

But I found myself basically alone in my fondness,… Read full post »

Fall looms and shadows shift as the relentless sun retreats. The days shorten and on cue my mood will lift then wane in unmet anticipation. I can’t help it. I’m wistful for nostalgia’s season. 

In our agrarian past, fall was a time of repose, when the labor of spring… Read full post »

Like the crack of a birch cane against a foe, two little words shot over the august assembly and echoed around the nation. The translation of that retort, though, is heard only through the wishes many hold inside.

By now, we all know the story. Pres. Obama’s address on health care… Read full post »

Amidst the political intrigue, the haranguing and hassling over gamesmanship and polls and votes and reconciliation, we often lose sight of what matters most. 

Essentially, I am what I am politically because I think compassion is what ultimately gives us the right to deem ourselves civilized. If… Read full post »

It’s still hard to think about because the emotions it stirs are a storm as well. The anger, the horror, the sadness and guilty relief whirl around my recollections at the eye of one of our nation’s worst national disasters.

Out here on the rim of Katrina’s crater, I… Read full post »

My breath was shallow and rapid, the rasping attempts futile. I needed oxygen.

I leaned forward on the desk, fighting, focusing against my body’s panic as I pumped my stomach, forcing my diaphragm in, out, in, out. Nothing helped.

I couldn’t muster the breath to phone for… Read full post »

What the hell is going on with the Secret Service? 

In case you haven't heard, Pres. Obama's appearance at a New Hampshire town hall meeting today brought out the usual crowd of hatemongers and hyperbole. Oh, that more of those screamers in attendance had heard of Godwin's Law but that would… Read full post »

Just a few months back, the nationwide Tea Parties unfolded. I reported from our local version and what I found was a bit unsettling. There was a racial undercurrent to proceedings – of course, everything here bears that – and I noted at the end that it merged with my sense of h… Read full post »

What a bear of a day. I duck into a lounge to catch a hot jazz act and who do I spy but Don Draper. I haven't seen this cat since before I worked at Downbeat.

We toss a few back, trade a few stories about creative pitfalls and… Read full post »

This piece from the editorial board of Sen. Jeff Sessions' hometown paper, the Mobile Press-Register, is remarkable mostly for one reason. No, it's not because of its right wing slant; that's well established for years now. Even the preceding day, the editorial board begged the utmost scrutiny of Sup… Read full post »

Adventure pushed us westward, beyond the forest and into the bare brilliance of a spring morning on the Southern Plains. Into Oklahoma, we followed I-40, the asphalt river tracing the route of old… Read full post »

This was originally posted in February of 2009 and written a few years previous. Given the Independence Day weekend and more tweaking, it seemed appropriate.   

It seems you’ve just got to pick and choose. Often to make the day-to-day bearable; other times to make existence possible.… Read full post »

“How did you get to this age and never have kids?” The shrug of my shoulders is always avoidance, an unwillingness to begin something people really don’t want to hear.

…  

My grandfather minced no words. “You’re just the product of a union that never… Read full post »

Whew, what a close shave. Health care almost stayed in the public consciousness long enough to get something done. Now it can stay buried beneath Argentine mistresses and Hollywood deaths. Thanks goodness distraction arrived, huh? 

One glance at cable news tonight says all you need to know about… Read full post »

It was hot so all I wanted was to cool down a little between jobs. The leg-powered breeze on the bike ride home was scant relief.

Inside the apartment, I plodded to the living room and fell into the sofa with a sigh. I just craved quiet, a little… Read full post »

There are plenty of serial killers, but there’s only one Joseph Paul Franklin.

Franklin’s case is devoid of the lurid deviance that makes for blockbuster movie fare. No captives in the basement; no adornment of his victims’ skin; no cannibalism or clown make-up or riddles mailed to… Read full post »

Is it just a sculpture? Or is it something more ominous?

Last week, a statue of former President Ronald Reagan was unveiled in the U. S. Capitol to fanfare and ceremony. His widow Nancy was there along with the usual Republican parade of charlatans… Read full post »

As much heat as National Public Radio takes these days, even on Websites such as OS, I still insist they’ve played a vital role by preserving and extolling a great deal of American culture. They move in opposition to the fickleness of the marketplace, the vagaries and short memories of the… Read full post »

As Pres. Obama's health care initiatives make headway in the Beltway, many are wondering why the most obvious solution has remained so verboten in our society. Why are there overtures toward the very forces creating our miasmic for-profit system thus far, the very system that sees health as commodity… Read full post »