Watching Over Brautigan
By Source, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=29768619 In September of this year we’ll recognize 35 years since poet Richard Brautigan shot himself in the head, committing suicide at the age of 49 in 1984. I was thinking about Brautigan today because a link to the excellent Adam Curtis documentary All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace [...]
American Acid
By Amrei-Marie – selbst fotografiert von Amrei-Marie, CC BY-SA 3.0 de, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6273518 T.C. Boyle’s new novel, Outside Looking In, revisits the 1960s and 1970s scenes where the author first experimented with psychedelic drugs. The book sews the experiments and careers of pioneering psychonauts like Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert into a fictional tapestry that reads like [...]
Sympathy for the Devil
I left early this morning for a coffeehouse counter top where I like to write in the mornings. Dose on McGavock in Riverside Village in East Nashville has good coffee and a pretty elaborate cafe menu. If I’m hungry for something more than black coffee I usually just get a plain bagel with butter and [...]
Tolkien Speaks
Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=91603 I just got back from a preview from the new Tolkien film which tells the story of the life of J.R.R. Tolkien, the creator of Middle Earth and author of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. I’ll be reviewing the movie in next week’s Nashville Scene so no spoilers. Instead [...]
Ferlinghetti: 100
By Elsadorfman – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link I unexpectedly found myself in New York City last week. One of the best things about a creative life is that I can grab my gear and run at an opportunity like this. I had pending writing deadlines and some design work to do, but I [...]
Demanding Poetry
I like to post about spooky stuff in October, and while this won’t count as a horror story I was more than a little anxious about my Poetry On Demand shift at the Southern Festival of Books on Saturday afternoon. The SFB is the premiere literary event of the year so it was THE place [...]
Ginsberg, 1968
Photo: Elsa Dorfman I haven’t got around to posting a lot about 1968, but we’re celebrating the anniversary of one of the craziest years ever, and it’s been helpful for me to look back on that yesteryear chaos to remind myself that these times are comparatively calm. Seriously. While everybody is uneasy about the Supreme [...]
Book of Bruce
2018 marks 45 years since the death of The Dragon, Bruce Lee. The filmmaker, dancer, philosopher and martial arts pioneer died mysteriously on July 20, 1973. Lee’s death has long been the subject of conspiracy theories ranging from a poisoning by a jealous lover to a mob hit by the Chinese Tong, and the rest [...]
Declassified Bloodlines
The CIA just put a spotlight on a conspiracy theory classic that was found on the bookshelf of Osama bin Laden. Let me explain: After the death of Osama bin Laden was announced the news was followed by revelations including dispatches about the volumes the world’s most wanted man kept on his bookshelf. Here’s the [...]
Watching Harlan Ellison’s Watching
I recently posted about the passing of science fiction pioneer cum pain in the ass, Harlan Ellison. The loss of Ellison has found me going back through lots of written reviews and obits as well as checking out a bunch of videos and recordings on YouTube. One of the things I like best about Harlan [...]
